


Fred Bear Was a Famous Bowhunter

by sian1359



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Fluff and Angst, Graituitous Use of Nicknames, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oral Sex, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 22:19:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sian1359/pseuds/sian1359
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony and Bruce have a sexual epiphany about Hawkeye, and they learn a little more about new teammate, Clint Barton, despite the people trying to kill them and their traveling companion, Logan, otherwise known as the Wolverine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fred Bear Was a Famous Bowhunter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whiteraven1606](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiteraven1606/gifts).



> The actual sexual content in brief and early, but the UST permeates. auburnnothenna helped with loads of this, but she didn't get the final product before I had to post, so not all of it has been through her red pen; the mistakes are definitely mine. Science and geography facts were checked by Himself, and all the google fu I could command.
> 
> Written for the 2013 Avengers Fest, for whiteraven1606, who wanted some of what I have tried to deliver. Sorry, my dear, I didn't think I could do deaf Clint justice, and temporary deaf Tony would have made the story even more difficult since it was written in Tony's pov.
> 
> Also claiming this for my Unrequited Love/Pining square for Trope Bingo Round Two

  
"So, thoughts, Big Guy?" Tony asked Bruce as he turned off the speaker phone and disconnected the call. "If having a babysitter along with us is a no go, I could probably talk a couple of the speakers into coming over and giving their presentations to some of the folks in SI's R&D. No one is going to object if the boss and a guest also sit in."  

"Are you serious, Tony?" Bruce looked more incredulous than uncomfortable, maybe unable to imagine that renowned scientists in a variety of fields would come running when Tony Stark asked, but it wasn't like Tony hadn't done if before.

There were just a few cons along with the pros if he did make such arrangements and Tony thought Bruce deserved to know them, so he continued and tried not to feel weird that Bruce seemed so surprised that someone might do something for him.

”The bohemian nature of the conference might get lost, along with any after hours spontaneous collaborations or arguments because if I do invite them, they'll think they're getting a job offer or at least a chance at funding. Oh, and there will be certain people who'll refuse to come because they'll think I'm looking to steal their ideas – but something is better than nothing, right?"  

He tried not to look too hopeful – or too fearful of disappointment – so as not to influence Bruce into making his decision based on Tony's wants instead of Bruce's own. Actually, Tony's real hope was that his and Bruce's wants coincided here, and that Bruce wouldn't feel so guilty or undeserving that he'd dismiss either suggestion as being too much of a bother.

As far as Tony was concerned, getting Bruce to interact with his peers once more, to remember that he was more than the guy who'd fucked up the super soldier formula that let the Hulk and other monsters loose on the world, would do Bruce a world of good. The work with SHIELD and the Avengers over the last four months since the 'Battle of New York' had given Bruce breathing room and enough good will that he no longer needed to completely hide himself away from Ross or certain other organizations. Even if SHIELD was still insisting Bruce didn't make any public appearances without having a babysitter – bodyguard was how Fury had put it – but Tony knew as well as Bruce did, that any watchdog would be tasked with guarding the public from Bruce as much as guarding Bruce from the public.

"I don't know," Bruce started to hedge. "There is no reason for everyone to have to go to so much trouble. It's not like anyone is going to want to collaborate, or would publish anything I put together, and I'm sure most of the papers being presented will eventually be posted on line if not actually published for formal peer review – "

"Forget what logistics might be involved for anybody," Tony interrupted. "Just tell me, yes or no, if you hadn't conjured up the Other Guy, would you be going to this conference? Assuming you had the money and time and weren't involved with curing cancer or whatever other yada yada," Tony added as a caveat before Bruce could use those excuses too.

More than anything, he wanted to give Bruce something of a normal life again. Not only did Bruce deserve it, but he'd done the same for Tony in the last couple of months, first just by being there after Pepper had left, then by agreeing with Tony that there might be something more between them than just their scientific compatibility, something more than a deepening friendship. Something worth pursuing –  

Bruce ducked his head as he nodded. "Doctor Leonard Sampson is someone whose work I've been following since before the transformation; one of the few I try to keep current with even now. This would be my first opportunity to actually meet the man in person."

Tony knew his expression had turned a little smug, that he was falling into old, bad habits of backing someone into a corner and making them give way to his will, so he tried to soften the no doubt shark-like smile into something that showed he was genuinely pleased with the outcome, but not because he was winning. "So that's settled. Bruce gets to meet Leonard, no matter what. Obviously you fly, since SHIELD picked you up in India. Are you currently curing cancer, and do you have any particular aversion to Germany?"

Bruce shook his head, his expression telling Tony the response was still more in a reaction to being bulldozed than in answer to Tony's questions, but the fondness also there, along with a tiny whiff of excitement, meant Tony hadn't pushed too hard.

"Then all we have to do is find the proper babysitter."

"Do you think Natasha would be willing?"  

Bruce not just saying yes to the trip, but actually participating in the selection process, was a big deal – a huge deal, actually – and for an instant Tony felt the same thrill as he had when Bruce had first agreed to move into the Tower. The first couple of weeks had been awkward. Bruce had made little effort to engage with other people, even Tony. It had actually been worse when Bruce had just gone along with any suggestion, including agreeing to things he didn't enjoy, just because he'd felt a sense of obligation. Bruce was still more often than not politely diffident when it came to articulating his own needs and wishes, but now Tony knew his not speaking up was generally because Bruce didn't have a particular opinion when it came to seeing movies or what he would eat, about furniture or colors or clothing. After a lifetime of deprivations, Bruce could now find the beauty or pleasure in just about anything.  

"I'm sure our spidery spy – our spying spider? – would be more than willing, but she already committed to going along with Pepper for the review of SI's Pacific Rim facilities over the next two weeks. She's leaving this afternoon to join up with Pep in Malibu for a couple of days before they fly out to Japan."  

Bruce simply looked resigned now instead of disappointed, like he hadn't really believed he'd get to do what he wanted from the first. "And Steve and Clint are off visiting Phil through the weekend," he brought up with a fatalistic nod. "Even if there was someone else from SHIELD I trusted, I doubt they could get the time away, given how many of the top personnel are tied up in recruitment as well as trying to keep up with everyone's who come out of the woodwork now, thinking SHIELD is vulnerable. It was a nice idea, but –"

"I betcha Rhodey would do it," Tony rushed out before Bruce could completely give up. Tony would have to not only make it up to Rhodey, but also the Air Force, if he pulled one of their top Colonels into temporary detached duty, but Bruce was certainly worth it, and Tony knew Rhodey liked it when he had a Stark favor in the offing.

"Actually, sirs, Agent Barton returned to the Tower last night," JARVIS interrupted. "He has just informed me that he was intending to make his presence known to you after a lunch meeting, and that he does not mind if I give the cat away from the bag early."

Tony didn't bother correcting JARVIS about the ill phrased idiom; he'd not only programmed the AI in colloquial forms of several languages beyond English, along with the ability to understand and use metaphors and similes, but he'd also given JARVIS the capacity to explore and pick up any additional slang or languages that interested him without needing Tony's input or approval, just as he'd given JARVIS leave to choose his own dialect and accent when speaking. Recently, JARVIS had undertaken a role in helping both Thor and Steve with their own understanding of current figures of speech; this glitch – or purposefully mangled expression had Thor written all over it, even if Thor had been off spending time with his girlfriend over the last month.

He also didn't bother getting upset that Clint hadn't bothered to tell him or Bruce that he was back; part of the beauty of living in what the press was calling Avengers Tower was being able to maintain something of a private life as well as being on hand for all of the team-building and team-bonding a person could stand. Clint and Natasha had been the last two to move in, and were the ones most absent from the common rooms, outside of Tony himself, and Clint still had his own recovery from what Loki had done, as well as Phil's, as a reason for keeping to his own schedule.  Not that they all didn't have such reasons; Clint's just being the most recent and, therefore, still the most raw.

"So Robin Hood is on site right now?" Tony asked, figuring if Clint had agreed to let JARVIS tell them he was in before he'd initially planned, he was also likely amenable to being interrupted.

"In the south gym," JARVIS answered immediately, meaning the question had already been asked. And answered.

Tony beamed at Bruce. "Shall we go see if our resident bird of prey is up for a trip to Germany?"  

"I doubt he would be willing to be that far away from Agent Coulson for a week," Bruce protested. "Even if he was, something must be going on that he cut his current visit short – "

"Nonsense," Tony said dismissively. He tucked his hand around Bruce's elbow and tugged. "Agent's recovery is exceeding all expectations of his doctors. He is in no danger of a relapse or something worse. It would do the two of them good to have a little time away from one another, to let someone else have a chance to visit Philly Cream Cheese without Artemis glowering at them. You'd think the two of them were lovers for how jealous our archer seems in having to share our patient."

"Are you sure they're not?"  

"Do you really think so?" The idea of it stopped Tony in his tracks along the corridor leading from Bruce's lab toward the private elevator only Avengers and certain other friends and acquaintances could access. "Isn't Philibuster a little old for Katniss?"

"I just meant that they seem exceptionally close," Bruce said guilelessly, though his lips quirked into almost a smile.

Tony might have had to do a little research to find appropriate nicknames, but he still had a few he could use without repeating himself.  

"Natasha too," Bruce continued. "I guess I wouldn't be very surprised to find out that the three of them … " He trailed off with a shrug and turned eyes that matched his tone in Tony's direction.  

Tony wasn't fooled for a moment that Bruce wasn't trolling him, but he still couldn't pass up the opportunity to fluster Bruce in turn. "Philadelphia Freedom, in a ménage a trois with the Wonder Twin Assassins?" he suggested, cocking his head to the side imagining it as they waited for the elevator doors to open. "Then he must be sporting a real package under his Dolce and Gabbana – "

"Tony!" Bruce sounded scandalized.

"You think he could give you a run for your money, babe?" Tony continued as they stepped in, unrepentant, but then he liked seeing Bruce's blushes almost as much as he enjoyed seeing Bruce's package. He'd actually dithered for a few days before letting Bruce know he'd worked out a deal with Richards to get some of his unstable molecules to make Bruce a pair of pants that could survive his hulking out but his own jealously over everyone getting to see Bruce's junk after a Hulk incident had finally prevailed.  

"Tony, I … you shouldn't … Agent Coulson doesn't deserve such – "  

Tony took pity on Bruce and put a hand on his arm to calm down Bruce's sputtering; as a good boyfriend, not because he was worried about Bruce going green. "Ah, Buttercup," he teased as they moved down the short corridor that opened into the south gym, "you know I only have eyes for y – "

Okay, so he'd just got caught in a lie, but a quick sideways glance showed that Bruce was just as speechless and as affected, going by how he stopped dead right next to Tony with his mouth hanging open.  

When JARVIS had said Clint was in the south gym, Tony hadn't really given any thought to what he might be doing. Tony assumed Clint might be sparring with Natasha even though JARVIS had made no mention of her and she'd need to leave to catch her flight in a couple of hours. The south gym was Natasha's favorite, with the thick mats that covered half the floor and a wall of mirrors lined with a barre that dominated the other side so that it looked more like a dance studio than a gym. It also, apparently, now housed actual gymnastic equipment that Tony didn't remember buying: a pommel horse, parallel bars that looked to be changeable to unevens, along with a high bar, a balance beam raised significantly higher from the ground than the Olympic standard, and a set of rings hanging from the ceiling. Rings that Clint, complete with black stirrup pants and some sort of tight, purple and black, high-neck wife-beater, was currently using.

Watching Clint roll upwards and hold his body parallel to the ground with his arms and the rings absolutely still was a thing of beauty and revelation, topped only when he then broke the hold to drop into a series of swings that had him doing a reverse handstand at his full extension and holding that for several seconds.  

Anyone who'd spent time watching the Battle of New York or any of the few other times the Avengers had gotten the call to assemble, knew that Hawkeye's arms were a thing of wonder, on par with Steve's ass and Natasha's curves. Tony hadn't considered that Clint might keep his upper body so fit and strong, however, by ways other than daily his love affair with his bow.  

Or that the talk about growing up in a circus was something more than just shining them on.

He'd have to get JARVIS on that; surely they would be some sort of paper trail, newspaper clippings with photographs or advertisements if not actual video.

"Shouldn't you have a spotter when you do that?" Tony found himself asking when Clint moved into a held sitting position above the rings with his legs out straight in front of him for six or seven seconds before then shifting his legs into side splits that a guy just shouldn't be able to manage. Especially not when the rest of his body – and the rings – really didn't move at the same time.

It was possible that Tony's voice might have started out hoarse and risen into a near yelp at the end of his question, but Clint only tipped his head to acknowledge that he knew they were there without giving any answer. He continued with his routine for a few more showy moves before twisting through a dismount that suddenly explained how Hawkeye had been able to jump forward off a high-rise and flip around to still be able to get a shot off at the Chitauri that had chased him from the roof.

Only once Clint had grabbed up a bottle of water he'd placed on the mat nearby, upending about half over his head before draining the rest in one go and then picked up the towel also at his feet to rub over his hair, did he head toward Tony and Bruce. He pitched the now empty bottle into the recycle bin set next to the wall behind them as he approached. Of course he didn't miss.

"JARVIS implied you needed something?"

"Yeah, a favor," Tony admitted, too preoccupied by the water drops he could now see clinging to Clint's spikey hair and eyelashes to hedge as he normally would have, preferring to sound out the other man first to see if he was amenable to even talking. Clint didn't hang out much with them much, between still reporting to SHIELD on a regular basis for missions or maybe just on-going evaluations after the whole Loki took over his free will shtick, and the time he was spending helping Phil through his rehab. He seemed okay with doing stuff with the team, had even suggested they institute a regular movie night every couple of weeks to help Steve and Thor understand pop culture, but outside of honest-to-god, scheduled team events, Clint generally made himself scarce even when he was around the tower, especially when Natasha wasn't also in residence.

"But it's nothing that can't wait until you're finished with your workout," Bruce spoke up while Tony tried to collect himself. "If there's more."

While hoping that there, indeed, was more, Tony was also hoping that, for once, Clint's vaunted, almost preternatural observational skills had been confused by Tony's uncharacteristic honesty so Clint was now looking for the catch instead of discovering Tony's obvious state of physical arousal. It was one thing to have lustful thoughts about Natasha or Steve and spring a woody now and again when watching them fight, spar or simply go at a punching bag. Hell, there were multiple websites _devoted_ to Captain America's ass and the Black Widow's cleavage. The only reason Tony could think of why there weren't any he'd found worshipping Clint's arms were a), he'd not specifically looked for them or b), because Clint was normally up high on rooftops during the Avengers' battles, so there wasn't nearly enough pictures or video footage to so inspire fans.

Part of his brain stayed figuring out how he might be able to assist in correcting that lack. The rest was berating himself for having a sexual epiphany about someone who could kill him with a flick of the towel draped around his neck, when he'd already learned that lesson from his earlier dealings with Natasha. Not to mention he was doing so in front Bruce, with whom Tony hoped to find something more than the already more than he deserved fun and tender bed and research partner. Never mind that Bruce had that whole giant rage monster thing going on too and jealousy was a kissing cousin to anger.

Then Tony thought about what Bruce had done for him, jumping in to let Clint know the favor would be for the both of them instead of just for Tony, along with the fact that Bruce's voice had sounded rattled and a little tight as if he was just as overwhelmed by Clint's impact. And didn't that bring up interesting possibilities?

"Yes, definitely, don't let us interrupt if you've still got more ridiculous showing off to do," Tony seconded with only the slightest exaggerated leer, because it was expected and if he hadn't, that might be what would give him away. He did have a certain reputation he still tried to maintain after all, even if the reality was quite different.

"I'm done, other than taking a shower," Clint told them, looking more amused than bothered. He didn't seem to be aware of Tony and Bruce's dilemma, but then he'd started to unspool the tape or gauze or whatever he'd used to wrap around protective guards over his hands, so maybe he was simply preoccupied with his standard wind down routine.  

Clint's attention also stayed on task, his focus drawn to a strip that didn't want to be pulled free. When he moved to bite at it, Tony was once again caught up in watching instead of thinking, which allowed Bruce to move first and reach for Clint's hand to help, while Tony was left wondering if he was developing a new fetish.

"I'll meet you back here in ten?" Clint suggested once his hands were bare, giving Bruce a nod of thanks for working the tape free. "Or would you prefer we take it upstairs?"

Tony jumped on that with a quick nod. "Upstairs, yes. In ten or, hell, take fifteen minutes," he offered magnanimously. He was in no state to even walk at the moment, much less head back upstairs, but anything to get Clint moving away from them. Scent had always been an effective trigger for Tony and while Clint's sweat scent was strong, it wasn't offensive beyond what it evoked. Once Clint moved out of smelling or visual range, and then he and Bruce left this room of startling revelations themselves …

Of course, Tony's ability to recall in great detail most anything he'd seen was a major reason Stark Industries had become a multi-billion dollar company under his tenure. Then there was his imagination, his ability to take something from what he had seen and visualize all manner of things it might be able to do. Which, in this case along with the reality of what he and Bruce got up to, would give him jerk-off material for years.

Clint raised his gaze from the mess he now held in his hands, his expression turning wary, but he then simply shook his head, as he quite often did when confronted with what all the professionals couched as Tony's mercurial moods, and pivoted to head across the room to where the dressing rooms and showers were housed.  

Tony managed to wait until Clint had disappeared behind the door to the men's entrance, then rounded on Bruce. He flicked his eyes quickly up and down to confirm that Bruce was indeed just as aroused as he was. "JARVIS, temporary lock on that door, release it only when I say or when Clint gives it three tries. If that happens, apologize for it getting stuck and offer a promise to have maintenance look into it," he rushed out as he pushed Bruce back to the wall next to the elevator doors. "Oh, and do not scrub this room just yet," he added, dropping to his knees while he fumbled for the front of Bruce's pants.  

"Tony, we can't just –"

Whatever protest Bruce had planned got derailed by the strangled groan he let out instead when Tony tugged his belt open. Tony didn't given him a chance to try again. In just seconds he had the button and zipper of Bruce's preferred linen trousers undone. Given that underwear only got in the way and could cause even the Hulk some pain when going through the transformation, Bruce generally wore a jock when he wasn't dressed in his Hulk-proof pants, so Tony only had to run a finger up along the side of the pouch to free Bruce's definitely interested cock.  

He had no time for finesse and, frankly, he didn't figure Bruce cared about much beyond getting off at this point. So he licked a long stripe along the underside as one of the most perfect cocks Tony had ever had the pleasure of fellating rose to strain toward Bruce's stomach. He raised his eyes to meet Bruce's as Bruce looked down, his expression a mix of disbelief, disapproval and desperation. Tony couldn't help but grin seeing Bruce bring his own wrist to this mouth to quiet any noises that might escape as Tony tongued under the glans and then into the slit before he let the tip of Bruce's cock fall into his mouth. After a few more licks and swirls to go with their heated eye-fucking – just to make sure Bruce was paying attention and not thinking Tony was going to short-change him – Tony brought one hand up to cup and press against Bruce's balls while he gripped the swell of Bruce's lovely ass with his other one. Bruce's free hand dropping to rest on his head was Tony's signal to swallow Bruce down and start bobbing and sucking in earnest.

The musky smell of Bruce's arousal and his own sweat quickly overcame that of Clint's, but that was fine, was perfect, because while Tony might now have to give thought over to what it would be like to suck or fuck Clint, this moment was all for Bruce. Tony hollowed his cheeks and let just a hint of teeth through on the next upstroke, then sucked and gulped around Bruce's cock while going back down. He needed only to repeat these steps a couple of times, changing it up with a few swirls while holding the cock against his palate and gently increasing the pressure against Bruce's balls, before Bruce was tapping Tony on the head in warning.  

Tony gave a pleased hum and stepped up the suction while his little finger might have started rubbing along Bruce's crack. He was almost instantly rewarded with Bruce's release. He swallowed, not only so as not to give away what they'd gotten up to when Clint eventually came back, but because he enjoyed doing so for his partners.  

He and Bruce had had arguments about his willingness to swallow when they'd first talked about becoming intimate. When pointing out the element he'd created to replace the palladium in his arc reactor had basically reversed his body's breakdown and would probably do the same with any leftover gamma radiation that made it past the rest of the serum that kept both Bruce and the Hulk virtually indestructible hadn't been enough reassurance, Tony used Bruce's own faith in the scientific method to talk Bruce into jacking off into a cup so they might test his ejaculate for _any_ contaminants, not just the gamma irradiated ones. Confirming that the changes the gamma radiation version of the Super Soldier Serum had wrought to Bruce's body were on the genetic level – just like Steve's version and, Tony thought, like that Natasha had been given though he'd not yet gotten up the nerve to ask or even suggest that she'd been given the Soviet's attempt to recreate Captain America – as well as pointing out that Steve hadn't affected his sexual partners before being trapped for seventy years in the ice, there wasn't much Bruce could continue to protest about without turning his back on the very foundation of his life.  

Tony had offered his own blood tests, despite having been monogamous once his and Pepper's relationship had turned sexual, and once they'd both come back clean, their next argument had been whether Bruce could have sex at all given elevated heart rates could bring about the Hulk even without underlying anger. Tony had pointed out that sexual activity in general made people happier and more mellow, that maybe Bruce was angry all the time because he wasn't even masturbating, and eventually they'd started experimenting with that end too, as good scientists did. Tony liked to think his skill in fucking and fellatio had done its part in convincing Bruce that going without condoms would be okay, but he was also okay with leaving going bare to be something of a special occasion.  

Like getting your partner off in only … four minutes when Tony checked.

While Bruce put himself back together, Tony headed toward the stand of water and towels, needing less than three minutes to get himself off before he deposited the towel in the laundry chute and brought Bruce back a bottle of water along with one for himself.

"You can make it up to me tonight," he teased Bruce, who still looked shell-shocked and deliciously rumpled, even more than his usual appearance, as they left the room. "JARVIS," he then addressed his AI, "go ahead and unlock the door and get the air scrubbers going. We'll meet Clint in the sunroom." He gestured for Bruce to precede him into the elevator.

*****

"Look," Clint started with as he came into the sunroom less than a minute after Tony and Bruce had made it in. Tony was still pouring drinks: something mildly alcoholic from the Pepper-approved list that JARVIS monitored on everyone's behalf for himself, and one of the fruit smoothies that Bruce preferred when he didn't just drink water or tea.

"What am I'm pouring for you, William Tell?" Tony asked, stopping Clint before he could finish whatever he'd planned to say as well as stopping him just inside the door. "I have fifty-seven kinds of beer and a wine cellar that would make the Prime Minister of France weep, not to mention several bottles of scotch whiskey that are sixty-nine years old."

Clint shook his head. "Thanks, but I don't drink."

"What?" Tony had to ask. "You mean like ever?"

At least Clint didn't look any more disturbed by Tony's shock than he had at being called William Tell.

"I can fake it if it's called on for a mission but, yeah, like not ever." Clint's told them, his voice and chin both rising in an unspoken challenge.

A challenge that Tony had to accept. He didn't mind about the drinking, of course, just didn't understand. And when an engineer didn't understand …

"Are you Mormon or something?" he pushed. "No, I've seen you drink coffee and eat some of Bruce's _special_ brownies. Plus, there's that whole killing people for king and country."

Both Clint and Bruce gave him sour looks for that one.

"Let's just say I respect my body and leave it at that." The way Clint's expression shut down warned that the conversation was being shut down too.

Tony nodded and gave in graciously. There was likely a story there, something tragic or at least sordid, but for once, Tony didn't feel like he absolutely had to know. At least not now when he needed Clint's cooperation. "I've been told frozen watermelon substituting for ice cubes makes water pretty tasty," he offered by way of an apology.

That earned him a shrug, which wasn't a no, so Tony made one. Bruce picked up the glass along with his smoothie and delivered it.

"You were saying when you came in?" Bruce then prompted, taking over Steve's role as a good host and conversationalist in their super soldier's absence.

Clint shrugged again and devoted an inordinate amount of attention to his glass. "It's not that I don't want to be a team player," he began, finally, without taking a sip and also without raising his head though he wasn't mumbling. "I just couldn't come up with much that the _two_ of you, together, might need me for," he put out there. "At least nothing that I would be willing to do," he added, looking up at last, with a fierce enough expression that Tony swallowed the obvious retort.

If he and Bruce decided that seducing Clint was really on the horizon, Tony certainly didn't want Clint to think the offer was just a stupid come-on or a punch line. Nor did he want to be told a knee-jerk no, at least not until he had a little more time to fantasize about it.

"I never volunteer to test new experimental tech or participate in weird medical trials or unnecessary exams, I've already proven I'm not a mutant to both SHIELD and Xavier's satisfaction, and everyone has already signed off that I'm Tesseract-free, including Captain America," Clint finished with and, if those kind of things had been what Clint had been worried about being asked as a favor, it certainly explained his current defensiveness.  

Tony might have felt a touch of concern that Clint had spoken only of the Tesseract in regard to Clint's actions in Stuttgart and on the helicarrier just preceding the Battle of New York. Not because Tony thought Clint had somehow forgiven Loki for turning him into a blue-eyed zombie minion, but because not mentioning Loki seemed more like him not able to acknowledge Loki, which was all kinds of bad headspace-wise; something Tony knew first hand from how he'd shied away from even thinking Obadiah's name after the betrayal and trying to kill him situation. Tony still couldn't remember the good times he'd shared with Obadiah, who'd basically been a surrogate father to him for years, without also remembering the end, but he could at least deal with the Obadiah Stane who had run Stark Industries for those same years, in the context of business plans and research projects.

He'd have to keep a better eye out instead of assuming Clint was more or less okay, that just because he was free of Loki's mind control, it had only taken blowing the little shit off his Chitauri chariot with an exploding arrow to set the world to right.

"Hey, it's nothing like that," Bruce said reassuringly. He took an immediate step backward, as if he'd been the one pushing and crowding Clint. "There's a conference starting up in a couple of days that Tony and I want to attend. SHIELD thinks we need a babysitter – "

"Bodyguard," Tony corrected, because while he might feel demeaned by having to have a watchdog, he didn't want Clint to think the position itself was humiliating. "We know you don't want to be away from Agent for long, especially with Natasha planning to keep an eye on Pepper when they head to Japan and other parts Far East this afternoon, but it would be good for you. And lest you worry, Capsicle has been asking for my help in bringing Gabe Jones, the last surviving Howling Commando, to introduce him to Phil, so it's not like he's going to be abandoned. Plus Hill has been making noise about needing to talk to our favorite SHIELD zombie on some kind of Level 7 business we're not read in to know about, so she wants you gone for a few days too. And, frankly, you look like could use a break not just from doctors and hospitals, but New York. So, what do you say, bro?"

"Do not ever call Phil a zombie again, nor call me a fucking bro."  

Tony pasted on a practiced smile in the face of Clint's sudden anger. "Okay, not what I was expecting," he admitted. "I'll give you that the zombie thing might be too soon, but bro? What in the hell is wrong with calling you a bro? Bruce is my science bro – "  

Tony let it drop when, even more surprising than the touch of temper, Clint abruptly shuddered and the tips of his ears began turning red.  

"It's just a thing, Tony," he tried to non-explain, while also making a visible attempt to relax his body language.  

Not even Bruce looked like he was going to let Clint get away with just that.  

"Fine. It's just stupid and it's all Phil's fault. One of the things he's been doing to kill time while he's stuck in bed is troll the internet for what the civilians are putting out there about us. He's found some fanfic –"

"Fanfic?" Bruce interrupted, while Tony managed to suppress his outright chuckle but couldn't keep back the smile.  

He knew about fanfic, both the derivative kind based on other people's cinema or book ideas as well as the kind of stuff a certain type of person wrote about famous celebrities. He'd actually had to set someone from SI legal after a couple of authors who'd taken a few too many potshots at Pepper and had a full security team responsible for monitoring who might write like a stalker and who might actually become one. For some reason, he hadn't thought about what might be showing up about the Avengers, something he'd have to rectify, given how certain subsets of the fiction were actually pretty entertaining.

"It's fictionalized stories that mostly women like to write about people or characters that fascinate them," was Clint's explanation.  "And Phil has found an author, has _inflicted_ one on me that he fucking quizzes me on when I visit. This M. Fraction has written a bunch of stories with Hawkeye living off in Bed-Stuy of all places, where he keeps running afoul of the Tracksuit Mafia, a bunch of Russians shakedown losers, whose overuse of the word Bro has started to haunt _my_ dreams every time I hear someone with the remotest Slavic accent. If it wasn't for the pizza dog that Hawkeye owns, and the fact that Fraction's me is kinda a dick but still tries to do the right thing, I'd probably be hiring a lawyer to sue the author for defamation of character. Phil insists, in between laughing at me, that 'you have no case, Bro'," he finished in a passable impersonation of Phil. Clint had also begun to make air quotes, only to recall that he had a glass in his hand, which he then took a drink of as if it would hide his embarrassment.

"Got it. No one but Philly Cheese Steak gets to call you Bro," Tony couldn't resist saying, and took the middle finger Clint flipped him with his free hand as his due.

At least the watermelon flavored water seemed to be a hit.  

"So, when, where and for how long?"

Bruce was more on the ball than Tony, who'd been distracted by Clint dropping a couple of the watermelon cubes onto his tongue and sucking at them to the point his cheeks hollowed. He answered: "If we leave tomorrow, that would get us there a day in advance to acclimate to the time difference. The speaker I'm most interested in is giving the keynote address, and he has a presentation on the second afternoon, so we don't have to stay for the whole conference. We could have you back by the weekend. As for where, it's in Stut –"

"It's in Stuttgart," Tony finished when Bruce's expression turned stricken and he stuttered to a stop. Tony was sympathetic, tiptoeing around the subject wasn't going to accomplish anything, however.  

"If you're going to let bad memories keep you away from lovely cities," he goaded deliberately, "shouldn't you also move out of New York?"

"Fuck you, Stark – " Clint growled, hot embarrassment as well as anger thickening his tone.

Tony refused to be intimidated either. "Anytime, anywhere, _Clint._ Which was this afternoon's little unforeseen epiphany, let me tell you. Oh, and Bruce would be involved, so I hope you're into threesomes –"

" – when was the last time you went back to Afghan – "  

Midway through the rest of his retort, Clint's brain caught up with Tony's response, going by how he stopped and flushed once more. That was surprising enough that Tony let the jab about Afghanistan go. Not that Clint had been wrong, really. Tony hadn't gone back to Afghanistan since he'd been taken; _Iron Man_ had, to blow the shit out of some terrorists. Doing that still hadn't been enough to stop him from occasionally waking up screaming about/at Yinsen, the Ten Rings, Obadiah, or from clawing at the arc reactor. Sometimes he just woke up screaming with no trigger at all.

He figured out that he'd let a little too much of these thoughts be seen when Clint took a couple of deep breaths and closed his eyes, when Bruce started to rise but instead sat back down and set his drink down so he could squeeze and release his fists in a rhythmic four count that Bruce concentrated on so that he wouldn't Hulk out. In the ensuing silence, Clint reopened his eyes and raised his glass to finish it, without looking either Tony or Bruce's way. He then set down his glass on one of the entry tables and walked over to one of the full, floor-to-ceiling windows instead of walking out.

If you knew where to look, you could still see scars from Loki's invasion attempt, but mostly it simply looked like a typical day in New York; buildings were torn down and resurrected all the time.  

"Tony's not wrong, though he's an ass for the way he presented it," Bruce finally broke the silence. He waived at Tony, showing that he was okay now, or maybe just suggesting that Tony pour another round of drinks.

Tony chose not to feel insulted and thought the drinks a good idea. At least it gave him something to concentrate on. Not that he could ignore or avoid the tension that now permeated the room.

"Ignore _everything_ he said and just accept the underlying meaning," Bruce continued. "You shouldn't let Loki take Stuttgart or any place or anything away from you, Clint. You don't want to go to Stuttgart tomorrow, that's fine, especially if it's because you don't want to be saddled with us. But don't just automatically say no, because you're concerned over how you might react if you go back." He took his own deep breath and leaned his head back to on the couch to stare up at the ceiling.

"I doubt the things Loki forced on you, as bad as they were, were the only actions taken in your life to give you regrets. At least it's that way with me. If I really think about it, the stuff I've done as the Other Guy still has fewer long term ramifications than my basic research into harnessing and creating applications for gamma radiation. I didn't need to turn big and green to ruin lives."

"Don't forget, too," Tony interrupted before Bruce gave away even more of himself, just because Tony always screwed up, even when he was trying to do good. Before he felt compelled to bare his own _Merchant of Death_ soul. "While it might have been part of Loki's _glorious purpose_ , Steve, Nat and I kicked Loki's ass in Stuttgart, in front of cheering witnesses. If you want to hold onto memories of Stuttgart, hold onto those like everyone else."

Bruce gave him an eye roll, but also a gentle smile that said he was proud and pleased and a whole bunch of other emotions that made Tony feel uncomfortable, but also reassured him that he'd done okay by bringing the room back to the pertinent discussion and away from secrets better left shared in the dark – if at all.

Clint still hadn't turned around, didn't respond unless you counted the tight line of his shoulders loosening. Tony waited a few more long beats, then grabbed up the drink he'd just fixed and took it over.

"I didn't spike it, I promise."

That got Clint to look at him, with that disconcerting way he had of seeing through all the masks and defenses before he accepted the glass and gave a nod of thanks. Silence then descended once more, while Tony moved to the couch and Bruce instead of back to the bar.

After another minute where they simply leaned against one another and waited, Clint finally began to talk.

"Natasha keeps a book of judgment in her head," he told the window. "Her ledger. With one column listing all the harm she has caused, the other nearly empty because she refuses to believe that the good she does now can offset the red staining her soul. She's never believed when Phil or I told her the stuff her Russian masters compelled her to do belongs in _their_ book, not hers. We don't push anymore, because it's what she needs to think to keep going, to just get up each morning. Because it works. For her, for SHIELD … she lives and thrives in a world of nuance, but she thinks and judges everything in black and white."  

Tony absolutely did not shudder. From the tone, the words … from secrets once more being offered. He would have protested, would have at least cautioned that these secrets weren't Clint's to give away, but he knew Clint wasn't done and that, somewhere in Clint Francis Barton's head, this was necessary, important. All of it.

"Phil joined SHIELD, not because he thought he'd be one of the angels, that he'd become a hero like Captain America, but because he knew that sometimes terrible things had to be done for all the right reasons. Because he couldn't be one of those who just sat back and expected or asked someone else to take up that burden. Phil is Fury's conscience and confessor, Fury's one good eye, but he makes mistakes just like everyone else, sometimes acts from emotion or sentiment instead of logic. He even has a temper. He has his regrets, but he's learned to let the guilt go, at least most of the time. At least before Loki killed him. He's not infallible or incorruptible, but he is the most decent and courageous man I've ever met. Well, until I met his role model."

There was something of a smile in Clint's voice, even before he referenced Captain Boy Scout. He also turned around. The smile was damn fleeting because the upturned stretch of his lips now had nothing to do with fondness or amusement, at least not the positive, healthy kind.

"I've lived my whole life in guilt," he offered up with a hint of laughter that was entirely self-directed. Self-destructive.  

Tony knew quite a bit about that kind of laughter.

"Guilt over being born and not able to please – or stop – my father, over holding back and then overshadowing my brother, for ignoring what the people around me were doing in my simple-minded wish for a place to belong when I was part of Carson's, when I lived on the street and, hell, even at SHIELD."

Although he was looking at them, Clint wasn't _looking_ , which made it, just slightly, more bearable to listen to Clint dissecting himself and know he wasn't directing his words with any attempt to inflict damage to them.

He gave up another humorless laugh before carrying on. "Outside of my ability to kill, my self-worth is for shit. Well, except for the killing and my ability to take a mess of shit and not break, at least not in any way that I've endangered others," he clarified. "The truth? Loki taking me in for my ability to pull the bow string? That's barely a blip on my radar, since that's what everyone's done all my life."

Tony wanted to interrupt there – Bruce almost did, but Tony doubted Clint would have continued if he was stopped. Especially if one of them were to point out that Loki could have taken anyone if they just needed a killer. Clint might be a weapon, but he wasn't a tool. He took hold of Bruce's hand both to check him from speaking, and for something warm and human to hold onto.

"But all Loki had to do was ask, and I gave up those _private_ things about Tasha and Phil without hesitation. At lot of others things too, not just how to take down the helicarrier or how we only needed an eyeball to gain access to some iridium, but personal observations about anyone he brought up, including the two of you if you were wondering. Secrets once acted upon that would cause so much more pain than just getting hit by one of my arrows. _That's_ what I'm still trying to deal with, what Stuttgart represents. I told him everything so he could torture instead of making them clean kills."

Despite how painful it had to have been to offer that up, Clint was hardly even breathing heavy. He, frankly, looked relieved to have gotten it out into the open. Which left Tony wondering just what Clint had told the SHIELD shrinks to get reinstated for active duty. Loki had truly unmade him; had taken every talent, every characteristic, every belief and principle, and had twisted – corrupted – the very core of Clint Barton's being.  

Afghanistan, Obadiah – hell, even his father – had certainly influenced the man Tony had become; each and every one of the Avengers had those kinds of issues, including Clint. But at least in Tony's case, the newer stuff had simply tempered and strengthened what had always been there. Iron Man, along with the arc reactor, was the manifestation of his pain as well as the solution to keep such future pain at bay.

Tony could understand why Clint hadn't told any of this to the shrinks. Why he probably hadn't bothered Phil with it either, since Phil had so much of his own shit to deal with still. If Tony had thought about it before this moment, he supposed he would have figured that Clint would have at least come clean with Natasha; it certainly appeared as if they had that close of a relationship. But being unmade no doubt hit too closely to home for her, what with her masters having spent so much of her life molding and turning her into their beautiful and deadly surrogate. It seemed quite likely that Clint could have thought his experience with Loki would seem trivial to a lifetime of being remade, but you could still say that because Natasha had never been given the chance to develop a core personality before she'd come to SHIELD, she couldn't miss or feel shamed by the destruction of what she'd never had, so she'd actually had the easier time of it.

Not that Tony would ever say such a thing aloud, to anyone. Trauma didn't have a quantitative scale of better to worse. At best it was subjective, and the only one who could reliably compare traumatic situations or peoples' reactions to them were the people who'd gone through them. Pepper's nightmares weren't any less valid or PTSD-worthy than his. Sure, he'd been the one who'd physically been blown-up, detained, threatened and mutilated, but Pepper had been just as broken by it – no, she'd been broken more deeply by it, since Tony figured he'd actually come out better off in spite of all that had happened, while Pepper was the one who couldn't live with what had happened.

Perhaps it was similar for Bonnie and Clyde, or Clint feared it could fall out the same if he ever admitted to his Bonnie just how undone he'd been. With Natasha harboring actual fear of her Clyde as well as for him, given the shit Loki had promised he'd make Clint do to her.  

It was looking like Tony may have misjudged a couple of things, not just today but, really, since he'd first met their resident bowman. He needed to fix things, at least today's things, since no one person or action was going to fix the last few months of issues. If nothing else, they needed a break, going by Clint's far off stare and the way Bruce was close to crushing Tony's hand – or he was crushing Bruce's.

"Congrats on your self-disclosure, Merida, but are we going to dwell on your manpain and continue to ignore the elephant in the room? The very sexy elephant? Note how it's a very, a sexy, and an elephant – a threesome you could even say – "

"Jesus Christ on a crutch!"  

Tony had to hide a not completely inappropriate giggle; Bruce didn't curse often, but when he did, he did so with the gusto of a sailor. Tony also tried to hide the hurt he felt in seeing Bruce's expression, which seemed to convey he was regretting even knowing Tony, much less sleeping with him. Sometimes Bruce seemed to forget that Tony only played the bored, insensitive dilettante. Sure he'd taken a calculated risk, but even if the team hadn't exactly met the real Clint Barton before today, there had been glimpses before, and all of them pointed to someone who didn't care for pity, not even self-pity. He also had to have a dark and wicked sense of humor, considering his best friends were Natasha Romanoff and Phil Coulson, both of whom served their dry wits with the precision of a stiletto.  

It worked. The huff that Clint eventually let loose held only exasperation, no anger, no more angst.

"I'm already involved in a threesome, Tony. Not even your bed is that big."

It was said so matter-of-factly, so drolly, that Tony felt sure Clint was lying; no one needed that good a poker face unless they were bluffing. But Tony decided to go the discretion-valor route and not call him on it. He feigned getting shot in his heart and flopped back on the couch as if dead, only realizing after he'd done so that that might have been a little insensitive too.  

Clint only shook his head, however, and gave Tony a rueful smile. "You are an unmitigated ass, Tony Stark. With balls as big as your ego."

"And reinforced with iron," Tony agreed with a nod. "Good old dad always said I had to be the best at _everything_ I did. So is that a yes or no to Stuttgart?"

Clint shrugged. "Potential nightmares aside, I may still be more of a liability than an asset. I did a lot of recruiting in Stuttgart. Outside those who didn't die during the subsequent attacks, SHIELD's managed to hunt down most of the people I convinced to go up against them, but I imagine I'm still on a few peoples' lists – on both sides of the law. I could end up drawing the wrong kind of attention to your trip, however you want to interpret that."

"You could walk naked down the middle of the Friedrichstraße, wearing only your quiver, and Tony would still garner all the attention, I'm afraid," Bruce pointed out with a smile that only proved he was a bastard and a turncoat, throwing Tony under the bus so he could woo Clint himself with his follow-up empathy and comfort.  

Also proving that he'd forgiven Tony. At least for the moment.

"If the good guys come after us," he went one with disgusting earnestness, "I can't think of anyone who wouldn't be convinced you're back to yourself just by looking at the footage from the Battle. And if that's not quite enough, we always have Tony's mouth – or his money – to smooth the way. Conversely, if we're beset by some of the criminal element, the three of us are not without our own skills and ability to defend ourselves. I'm not just _not_ worried about having you with us, I'm really hoping that you say yes. Tony and I are both going to need someone to keep rein on us and I think you'll be easier and more interesting to work with than Tony's friend, Colonel Rhodes or, frankly, than Steve, no insult intended for either man. What I am worried about is how boring it might be for you."

Clint once more had pinked around his ears, from the praise this time instead of reacting to flirting, and that was maybe even sadder to realize.

"Can things ever be boring traveling with Tony Stark?" he asked before raising his glass in something of a salute, then taking a drink.

"That sounds like a yes to me," Tony decided.

Clint's expression changed to one that maybe wasn't sure what he was getting into, but he nodded and now moved to a chair across from them, sitting and setting down his glass. "Fine, yes, but it is dependent on a couple of conditions."

"Hit us with your best shots," Tony said with a gesture once more toward his heart. He ignored the thump when he hit the arc reactor instead, ignored the memory of Loki doing the same thing so that he'd thrown Tony out of a window instead. He didn't think Clint was planning on bodily harm as one of his conditions.

"If there is trouble, no matter what kind, you will both listen to me and follow my lead. If SHIELD thinks you need back-up, whether they're calling it a bodyguard or a babysitter, then they also think there is a threat and, no, not just from you, Bruce. Nor is it just a sop for the WSC."

"Not just," Bruce repeated, with only a faint tone of bitterness.

Clint nodded, but waved it off. "The WSC doesn't trust any of us. No, Tony, neither you nor Bruce are on the top of that list. Well, maybe when it comes to trust, but Steve is the one they most fear; Fury too, though he won't admit it. If Captain America went rogue, or simply decided he didn't want to march to their tune anymore, everyone knows they're not going to be able to stop him – or stop him from taking half of the world with him if it came down to having to choose sides. The WSC fears the power to inspire a hell of a lot more than they do the power of weapons or intimidation."

"Because it's a power they have no hope of every wielding themselves," Bruce agreed.

"Yeah, and Fury knows Steve doesn't trust him – can't trust him – even though, for the most part, the shit that Fury pulls does have valid if not always righteous reasons behind it."  

Clint stopped and scrubbed at his face for a moment; no doubt remembering Fury's lies about Phil's death and how long it had taken him to admit that Phil was recovering if not also other incidents like the Phase Two weaponry that Tony hadn't yet made himself privy too.  

"The thing of it for our trip, is that SHIELD will have set up resources and strategies on your behalf, including giving the German government and local Bürgermeister certain promises and guarantees that our being there isn't going to be a repeat of the last time. You may have all the money in the world, Tony, but that only buys temporary loyalty at best, along with enough people thinking they can take that money and convince you that they'll help you if things go down. There might be strings, but between using what SHIELD is offering and surviving to have a crisis about the strings beats refusing on some vague moral grounds and ending up dead. If either of you disagree, than for no other reason, it would be my job to make good for SHIELD if they were forced to fulfill any of those promises because of us. I may not always like my job, but I do like knowing the organization has my back and I'd prefer not doing something that could change that."

Tony supposed a little moral ambiguity was pretty much de rigueur for an assassin, and it wasn't like Tony hadn't played in those waters himself with his weapons' designs. And with Clint saying it that way, it certainly implied that SHIELD overall wasn't holding a grudge against Clint for what he'd done at Loki's behest.

"I assure you, the point is to go in low key, to not have the conference be about me just because I happened to show up. It's why I waited until the last minute to even obtain passes; so it couldn't turn into a Stark love-hate fest. As long as that's your – and SHIELD's – goal, as long as Bruce gets to attend and have a good time, I have no trouble letting you call the shots or over where the resources are coming from. I assume if something looks hinky to you, even if it's a SHIELD something, you're not going to put your job before our lives. I don't need any more trust than that."

Maybe Tony wasn't exactly saying that he trusted him, but Clint seemed to understand and, for the most part, Tony _did_ trust him more than he did most other people.

Tony Stark just didn't trust anybody unconditionally, not Pepper, not Rhodey, not even Happy, but with them, he could trust that when they did the things contrary to his wishes or demands, they were doing so because they felt they were doing things in Tony's best interest, and it wasn't like he didn't have a problem sometimes in dealing with that himself. Steve was almost to the same level as those three, despite Tony's real reluctance to succumb to the feelings he'd been force-fed for so much of his life. Phil, too, if he thought about it, with Bruce, Natasha and Clint at least at a level where he did trust them to have his back in all circumstances, and have his best interests in mind for a good deal of the time.

"Lives always come first," Clint promised.  

He had a look that had Tony thinking this wasn't the first time this subject had come up, though he somehow doubted Clint had had to so much make it a promise as make it an assertion in the face of people who'd had quite different priorities.

"In keeping with keeping you both safe," Clint was continuing, however, not seemingly bothered by such memories, "we might not want to fly directly into Stuttgart. Land instead somewhere a few hours away and drive in. Do you have a pilot in mind? Are we taking an SI plane?"

Tony shook his head. "The two pilots I trust will be going with Pepper and Natasha. And if we take an SI plane, someone is going to notice and tell the media. I thought maybe you could take the piloting duties?"

Clint seemed pleased with that suggestion. "SHIELD has a few planes at their disposal that don't advertise who it belongs to. I'll need a back-up pilot though; it's a long trip and we should have one in any case against something happening. Should I pick someone, or would you prefer to? Ideally, it should be someone who can also double as another bodyguard. There are two of you, after all, and while I'm good at watching people's backs, I can't be in two places at one time."  

"There are very few SHIELD agents I'm all that comfortable around," Bruce pointed out with a frown, obviously unhappy with the thought of having someone along who might have chased after him in the past. "Fewer still that are probably comfortable around me. Especially in a small tin can that will not hold up if the Other Guy shows up."

"After Manhattan, there are probably more of them willing to trust you than you think, but you have a point," Tony conceded. He looked back up at Clint. "Do you know someone who doesn't belong to SHIELD but otherwise meets your criteria? Who can be gentle with Bruce?"

Letting his expression turn amused at Bruce's blush, Clint nodded. "I don't know about gentle, but I've got a guy in mind who is definitely not SHIELD. He has worked with us in the past, however, so I trust him. Fury does too, for Fury's levels of trust." Clint paused for a moment, then shrugged and forged ahead. "He's a mutant, if that's a problem."

"As long as he's not like, blue and furry, not because I object to blue or furry, but because that wouldn't be in keeping with a low profile," Tony said reassuringly. He couldn't say he'd grown up around, or had any current friends that were mutants, except in some ways both Steve and Bruce were – maybe even Natasha – and SI did employ a few; Tony judged people by their personalities and usefulness, not by some genetic quirk.  

"If it's someone who you approve of and he's not a complete dick – shit, it's not Summers, right? You don't hate me so much that you would saddle us with Summers."

Clint smirked and shook his head. "It's not Summers."

Tony noted that Clint didn't deny hating him and had to grin in response to his glint and silence, as if Clint was waiting for Tony to whine about it. Instead, he also noted that Clint hadn't stepped up to defend Summers and let himself express that lack as vindication. Scott Summers was nearly as bad as Steve when it came to being a boy scout, but his personality leaned a little too far into self-righteousness and being judgmental for Tony's – and apparently Clint's – taste.  

Of course, the folks who worked and studied at Xavier's weren't the only mutants in the world. Someone like Clint would have made friends with any number of people over his long and storied career as an SHIELD specialist, and there was that circus rumor still. Undoubtedly the freak show had been rife with mutants, any one of them Clint could still be in touch with. The only conclusion Tony felt safe in making was the mutant in question wouldn't be a 'path. In fact, Tony would bet everything he owned that Clint had and would never trust a telepath in his entire life, especially now after Loki had gotten into his head.

"Ororo?" Tony speculated, going with one of Xavier's anyway since they were the ones that Tony could easily identify. "I could get down with having the lovely Storm as our fourth."

Shaking his head, Clint faked a look of sympathy. "Sorry, not Ororo, but you're in the right institute for gifted students," he conceded, then paused to draw out the suspense and Tony's disappointment. "Logan, on the other hand, fits the criteria."

"Really?" Tony absolutely had not squeaked that word out. He'd simply choked on his own breath.

With a nod, Clint started ticking off points with his fingers. "He blends in to any environment, can pilot and watch someone's back, and he can probably hold his own against the Hulk if he had to. He's also a hell of a drinking buddy, for those of you into that kind of thing. He'd be perfect, if he's available. And willing."

"I don't know him," Bruce spoke up.

"Yeah, he's not out in front of mutant rights like a lot of Xavier's people, but he is one of the X-Men," Clint explained. "He's got a healing factor that allows him to recover from just about any injury, kinda on a par with you, Doc, but instead of bulking up and going green, he's got foot long, retractable claws, and is otherwise filled with spit and vinegar as the nuns used to say. He can be crude, and brutally frank, but if I can't have Natasha or Phil, there's no one I'd rather have at my back in a fight."

"Tony?" Bruce asked.

His expression had settled on neutral, though Tony had no doubt that he was contemplating the pros and cons of having someone who wouldn't be afraid of the Hulk but who might also set the Hulk off, while Clint looked as if he would rather insist, but was also leaving it to Tony to make the final call.

"Will have I have to cut him a paycheck?"

"Am I going to get paid?" Clint countered automatically, but then shook his head. "Only in beer and cigars. And if you manage to get along, you should probably ask him about how he's pissed Fury off more than you have. They have a remarkably long history of running into each other over the years."

"Then how can I say no?"

********  

Logan said yes. He was waiting for them when Clint stopped the SUV, standing next to the plane with a cigar jammed between his lips as advertised, but Tony suspected it was unlit since he assumed Clint had passed on Bruce's – and the Hulk's – aversion to smoke as well as smoking. All Logan had with him was a medium sized duffle, but then he was his own weapon and maybe not as paranoid as Clint or Tony himself. From the distance, he didn't look particularly bad-assed, didn't look like a mutant superhero either, unless you took into account the hair tufts and the unfortunate sideburns, along with an upper body musculature that made both Clint and Steve look scrawny in comparison.  

If Tony was the type to measure himself by others, he could end up feeling positively wimpy, but he figured he could take the Wolverine down in a head-to-head fight as long as he never let Logan get close enough to use his claws. Sure, Wolverine had a reputation for having a near instantaneous healing ability, but Iron Man's repulsor rays operated on a molecular level if wanted them too, could scramble the brain as well as give someone plasma burns, and that was assuming they weren't taken out by the sheer concussive blast. Tony also had his brain, of course, and there were very few people in the entire world who could match him head to head using their intelligence.

"You think _he_ can take on the Other Guy?" Bruce asked, sounding unconvinced. "I was expecting someone bigger, someone with a stature more like Thor. The Other Guy could kick this guy into next week."

"You probably could, but don't let his size fool you, buddy," Tony found himself arguing. "What Orion here forgot to mention is that his bones, including his claws are overlaid with adamantium, so he's no pushover and it's possible he could actually cut you. Could _hurt_ you. If you two ever do get into a fight, your best bet is to neutralize him from a distance. Take advantage of your mass and tear up the ground between you, knocking him down or bury him in something so you can split."  

Tony half expected Clint to interrupt, to protest him coming up with ways to take out an ally and potential friend, but maybe that kind of knowledge was just prudent where the assassin came from. SHIELD had constructed a Hulk cage, after all, and probably had come up with innumerable ways to incapacitate the Iron Man suit when Tony had told Sterns and the rest of the US government that he wasn't going to march to their tune; nuking their problems couldn't be their only solution. Hell, Clint had certainly hinted that he'd given Loki ideas on how to neutralize the various Avengers, including Natasha, that probably were more than just taking advantage of mental or emotional weaknesses, and Natasha had certainly shown she was up to the task of taking out a murderous Hawkeye, so …

"If you do end up going fist to claw, clap him in the ear. Assuming you don't knock him out, that'd give him a hell of concussion anyway, and you'd likely pop his eardrums and disorient the shit out of his balance," Clint then answered Tony's unspoken question by contributing his own suggestion to the scenario. "He can't fight if he can't stand, at least not unless our Hulk buddy decides to try and then stomp him."

"That would work for the Star-Spangled Man, too" Tony felt obligated to point out. "But Thor can traverse through wormholes without a ship or even a protective suit, so his physiology is obviously something else that might run counterintuitive to what we expect."

"I don't know, an exploding arrow still sent Loki ass over teakettle," Clint reminded them as he opened his door. "And we know that if the Hulk just grabs onto a piece of a Norse God and bashes him into the floor like an unwanted toy, they don't immediately get right back up. That doesn't sound very counterintuitive."

"This is supposed to be a Hulk-free trip, gentlemen," Bruce objected before he, too, exited the car. "Bringing up suggestions for him will just encourage him, not the opposite."

"Don't tell me you're superstitious, believing that if it's talked about, it's going to happen," Tony protested as he grabbed up his suitcase armor and scrambled out after the other two. He'd be deeply disappointed in his boyfriend if the answered turned out to be yes.

"Of course not," Bruce responded with a scoff and a frown as Tony joined them at the rising trunk. "But the Other Guy does get anxious when he hasn't had an opportunity to get out now that it's become a much more regular thing, and I can feel him getting excited over the possibility of having someone other than Thor stand up to him. Though he's not fighting me about it so far, I don't know that it would take something all that significant for him to surface," he warned them.  

He lifted out his and Tony's suitcases, while Clint pulled out his weapons bag and a duffle no bigger than Logan's. The one suit jacket Clint had brought, along the two dress shirts and a pair of nice slacks were tucked in with the Armanis in Tony's expanding, leather garment bag, while Bruce had asked for room for one suit and one jacket, along with several nice shirts. Tony grabbed it up as well as the hard-case that held a laptop, several pads, and even a couple of paper files and notepads that he hooked to the rolling case, while he carried his armor in his other hand.  

The three of them ambled over toward Logan and the plane. One of the SHIELD jet monkeys was just finishing up the fueling and exterior checks; after Clint set down the case and dropped the duffle, he flipped the mechanic the set of keys for the SUV. Clint then turned to Logan with a gesture that encompassed both Tony and Bruce.

"Logan, Tony Stark. And this is Dr. Bruce Banner."

Tony got a nod and a sharp, "Stark", while Bruce was offered a handshake. He wasn't insulted; he and Logan had met before – clashed before to be perfectly honest – but in the guise of an educational charity fundraiser that they had both been forced to attend by their respected external consciences, not as Iron Man and Wolverine. It had been nothing a follow-up exchange of a couple years' supply of Havanas and a 1952 Indian motorcycle Tony had spent three months happily restoring hadn't fixed, but it wasn't like they then started socializing. They'd simply found a place of mutual respect.

"Thank you for agreeing to join us," Bruce said in return to a gruffly offered, 'Dr. Banner'. "And, please, it's Bruce."

"I owed Clint," Logan answered the unspoken question after acknowledging the invitation to informality. He tossed a scowl Clint's direction that was more pro forma than felt, Tony decided, since Clint wasn't even paying attention as he'd begun going through his own exterior checks of their plane.

"I owed Hill one too," Logan continued. "She's going to be very twitchy once she finds out I'm the back-up."

Okay, so Clint had been listening despite appearing completely engrossed in his duties, as that had him turning back toward them with a grin just as twisted as Logan's. Obviously there was a story there, but Tony wasn't about to feel sorry for her. While Fury's right-hand gal had mellowed in her skepticism about the Avengers' usefulness, she still made it quite known that she wasn't happy with the level of independence Steve had insisted upon in choosing when and where the team assembled. Now Tony was thinking her inherent distrust and personal dislike might be a combination of the super hero envy Tony had first assumed, coupled with a pathological need to stay in control on Hill's part; it took a very brave and self-assured person to willingly piss off the Wolverine.

"Well, whatever the motivations, it is still appreciated," Bruce responded, also shedding no tears for Maria Hill, though because of his antipathy to SHIELD in general, Tony knew, not because of any actual disagreement with the Assistant Deputy Director.  

Tony nodded in agreement to Bruce's thanks, not wanting to appear like a complete ass – although even that was more for Bruce's benefit than Logan's. Pepper had long despaired of Tony's 'fuck 'em if they don't like me' attitude. Perhaps if he'd conceded to common courtesy more often, he could have at least lessened her stress; looking back on their relationship now, however, he realized that nothing could have saved it once he'd accepted the dangers and responsibility of becoming Iron Man.

"If we get this show on the road, I had thank you gifts delivered," he added with the typical Stark charming smile and flare. "It was _suggested,_ " he said with an inflection he figured even Logan would realize meant he had been ordered, "that I should forgo bringing along a chef, so I spared no expense on the catering. Beef ribs and pulled pork sandwiches from _Corky's_ along with all the fixings for later, and that should be both sushi and the _kaiseki_ menu from _Brushstroke_ , for once we get into the air," he said of the helicopter just setting down north of them onto the tarmac even as he mentioned it.

The BBQ had been a guess, had been Tony profiling or stereotyping that a man who called himself Wolverine would have a fine appreciation for gnawed from the bone meat. The idea for the Japanese cuisine had been from Clint, who'd mentioned in passing that Logan had spent several happy years living in Japan when he'd been telling them a little more about what made the X-Men's heavy hitter tick. What was the use of having money, after all, if you couldn't use it to pamper your friends and impress your guests?

"Dammit, Tony, that is not maintaining operational security," Clint groused, however, instead of praising him for his excellent choices as well his timing.  

Well, JARVIS', but that was really one in the same since Tony had created and initially programmed the AI in the first place.

"Really, Odysseus? You're going to bitch and worry about gun wielding delivery boys? You really think they could make it onto a SHIELD base? Your lack of faith is distressing, and just for that, I may have them take back the sea urchin," he threatened with a sad shake of his head, knowing that was Clint's favorite.

"Even I'm not so self-absorbed that I'd chance getting banned from one of my favorite restaurants because I got a couple of their people shot down making a delivery," he then explained. "Instead, I simply asked Phil if I could temporarily borrow a couple of baby agents. They're handling the pick-up and drop off. And before you get your panties further in a twist, Brushstroke thinks it's catering a SI board of directors meeting, not Tony Stark's inflight meal."  

Of course Clint wasn't going to admit he'd jumped to conclusions or give up his scowl in front of someone like Logan, but he did make a conscious effort to relax his stance and shoulders when some of Phil's puppies-in-training came jogging up with their delivery boxes, and thanked them for their efforts. Next he suggested Bruce oversee getting the trays and a hefty cooler into the built-in serving stations inside the plane, leaving Tony to manage the luggage. He shook his head when Tony promptly co-opted the two twins-of-a-different-mother in their matching suits, sunglasses and disgustingly youthful good looks to do the heavy lifting, refusing to let them take his weapons case. Logan didn't hand over his own duffle either, just as Tony kept hold of the suitcase with his armor. Once the SHIELD minions were done and heading away, the four of them boarded, with Tony and Bruce setting up in the cabin while both Clint and Logan took seats in the cockpit.

Of course the plane wasn't up to Stark Industries standards. It was marginally more luxurious than Tony had expected of SHIELD, however, a mid-size Learjet 60XR. He couldn’t really begrudge them spreading their purchasing power around and it looked like SI had had a least a hand in outfitting it, as it had a touchscreen cockpit that Bombardier only made available on their Learjet 80s, as well as several built-in screens and server systems in the back cabin that made full use of Stark tech enhancements. If Tony remembered his specs correctly, they'd need to stop and refuel once before they reached England, which meant a trip to the helicarrier. That surprised him.  

Bruce wasn't a fan of the helicarrier, even now, but as the flight would take a minimum of 8 hours to reach Strasbourg, and another couple of hours driving to reach Stuttgart, they'd all be wanting the opportunity to get out and stretch their legs when they could, which also had to mean they wouldn't just be landing to refuel and then take-off immediately.  

"What's with the stop on the helicarrier, birdbrain? Do you really think that's a good idea?"

"Little late to be wanting to take another plane, but don't worry your pretty little head, Tony," Clint called back over his shoulder as he finished his final pre-flight and started taxiing down the runway. "This beauty has more mods than in just the cockpit and the added communications suite. We can make Reykjavik just fine on one tank, and there's this great little all day breakfast place called Prikid that serves the best _skyr_ and _hræringur_ that I thought Bruce would enjoy. _Skyr_ is more or less the Icelandic version of yoghurt, while the other is _skyr_ mixed with porridge that's used as a topping for the local catch of the day among other things."

Tony couldn't object, since Bruce did look interested. It wasn't like Tony hadn't lived much of his life as an international jet-setting playboy either, that he didn't have a cosmopolitan palate or a sense of adventure, especially when it came to local cuisines. Reykjavik was five hours or so away, would be a good break point to do the refueling and moving about in fresh air, but if anyone was going to introduce Bruce to new tastes, Tony –

No. Tony refused to act like a jealous boyfriend. No matter how busy and … international Tony's business dealings had kept him, of course the spy-slash-assassin would have been to more places, the exotic ones as well as the hellholes. It also wasn't like they had too many other options.

"Carry on, then," Tony commanded with a wave as he avoided the look of fondness Bruce had directed toward him, obviously knowing exactly what Tony had been thinking.

***********

 

The SUV that Clint, through SHIELD, had arranged for the final leg of their trip was waiting near the hanger as Logan taxied them in. While it looked like a typical Mercedes G Class off-road capable vehicle, Tony was quick to note it was actually one of the military versions painted out to look civilian, lightly armored and no doubt running on a super-charged V8 engine. It was also several years old and showed considerable use, which Tony thought was a nice touch in keeping to them blending in, but he supposed SHIELD was actually pretty good at that, given they did as more covert operations than the CIA or late KGB combined.

"I don't know where we are," Tony mentioned to Clint as they prepared to disembark. "This is definitely not Wiesbaden?"

"SHIELD's international, Tony. We could have landed anywhere in Europe, frankly. Did you really want to jump through the hoops at the US Army's European Command?" Clint sounded a little put-out, vaguely patronizing, but mostly distracted, as he and Logan started sorting out the luggage and dropping them down to waiting hands below. "We're at the old Army air base in Baumholder, two and a half, three hours out of Stuttgart."

"Any reason we didn't land at the Stuttgart Army Airfield then? Given your magical clearance?"

That got Clint to stop for a moment, although all that was left was the personal items he, Logan and Tony himself didn't let anyone else carry, so he probably would have straightened and looked over at Tony anyway. Bruce was also looking, but then followed Logan down the stairs, although not before conveying to Tony his _play nice_ expression. Tony took a step back, both mentally and physically; he hadn't thought he sounded so critical, though he supposed the magical comment could be construed as such.

Back during his weapons manufacturing days, Tony had been welcome at any US military base in the world. A few Allied bases too. While he wasn't completely persona non grata now, his welcomes weren't generally quite as warm, even with the defensive enhancements SI still produced to keep their hand in the DOD trough.

Clint shouldered his weapons case. "Same reason we didn't land at the civilian airport in Stuttgart, and why your itinerary says you were going to Strasbourg. If anyone is making nefarious plans on the off chance you're going to be attending the conference, they're going to be watching the closest airports. No one figures these mythical baddies have military access, or the manpower to cover any other likely candidates, much less nominally closed airfields." He gestured for Tony to take the lead so they could join the other two.

"Nefarious?" Tony had to ask, head turned back over his shoulder.

Clint shrugged. "Would you have rather I said your enemies? That's a pretty long list – "

"Yeah, well, I may not be a soldier – or a spy," Tony added, though he made sure there wasn't anyone he didn't know within hearing distance, "but I'm no civilian. I would think you would know by now that anyone moderately successful in the corporate world has enemies. Then there are all the broken hearts I left behind during my playboy phase. Hell, one of those will even be in attendance."

"Shit, Tony," Clint exclaimed and reached out to pull at Tony's shoulder. "You didn't think to tell anyone about someone who might have it personally in for you?"

Tony caught his balance against the side rail and turned more than his head this time, so he could offer the full glare at its most effective for nearly making him stumble. Unfortunately, Clint's glower was even fiercer, which caused Tony to swallow his immediately retort and go back over what they'd been saying with his attention this time, instead of just running on automatic.

Maya – one-night stand – didn't call – potential threat?

"It was at least ten years ago, maybe even fifteen," Tony defended himself. "Sure, I didn't call her afterward, but I didn't call _anyone_ afterward in those days. And _everyone knew that_. Especially the women. Okay, and the occasional guy. They knew I was looking for a distraction, while they were looking for bragging rights. No one was expecting hearts, flowers or a ring, I assure you. Broken heart is just a code for one-night stand."

Clint's glower didn't really soften. He nodded his head though, and Tony figured that was the end of it, until Logan said:

"I'm on it. Sitwell on an op right now, or should I just call Hill direct?"

"God, no, don't call Hill about an old Stark booty call." Clint nearly choked on his own spit to get that answer out before Logan pulled out his phone; Tony took it as karmic justice and turned back to finish disembarking. He definitely did not blush when Bruce just gave him a patient, knowing look from where he waited next to Logan.

Clint hit the tarmac seconds later and moved to start walking next to Logan. "Yeah, Jasper should be hanging around HQ," he finished answering Logan's question. "He's Coulson-light right now, overseeing field ops for Fury while Hill is handling recruitment and restoration. If he's not available, ask for Melinda in Records."

"Melinda? As in Melinda May?" Logan asked, stopping his forward movement – Clint's too as Clint wasn't the only one with grabbing hands.

"The Calvary is working in Records now?" Logan sounded surprised and a bit offended, but Clint made a cutting motion across his throat, which Tony took to mean don't ask any more questions.

Which was kind of rude, considering the two of them were discussing someone the other two of them didn't know, but if this Melinda was working one of the SHIELD offices, it wasn't likely Tony was ever going to meet her anyway, or remember her even if he did. He nudged his shoulder against Bruce's and started walking again, with Bruce following. Let not so big, but pretty bad-ass SHIELD agents hammer out who they were going to call and how they were going to find out Maya's threat level.

Not that Maya was a threat, unless she'd bio-engineered a form of sentient kudzu. She was a botanist, for god's sake. How dangerous could she be?

It would be like saying Aldrich Killian was a threat. Not that Tony thought that people with physical disabilities were a joke or incapable, but they generally didn't go the evil overlord/mad scientist route. Killian's paper at the conference according to the précis, would be on nanotech surgery, not how to take over a country.

And Tony thought he was paranoid.

********

How did that old saying go? _You're not paranoid if someone was really out to get you._

They'd just driven through Lauterschwan on the B427, a tiny town at least three quarters of the way between Busenberg and Birkenhördt. Only an hour and half into the drive, they were still well within the mountains that eventually led them down into the Rhine valley, after it was decided to take a less traveled route south toward the French border instead of having to deal with the congestion of Mannheim and Heidelberg, and while Tony thought Clint's estimate of three hours was very generous, it wasn't like the SUV was uncomfortable. Nor was the road, only two lanes but well maintained and, indeed, lightly traveled. Most of the route had been forested, very picturesque, and they had the windows open to the fresh mountain and wooded scents.

Logan was driving, although Tony had offered – who was the _professional_ driver, after all – not that the autobahn coming up was a big deal or it's no speed limit recommendations really any faster than the way Tony normally drove up and down the California coast when he stayed in Malibu. But Logan had said no, and Tony hadn't exactly pouted, since an SUV, even one by Mercedes, was no high performance vehicle.

At first Tony couldn't place the noise, something inexcusable given his history of designing weapons, but then he had not been expecting someone to open up with a semi-automatic in front of them as the SUV accelerated out of a hairpin curve. This wasn't Georgia after all, or even Soviet Georgia, with rednecks or rebels out to protect their moonshine and whatever against the repressive government. If their vehicle hadn't been armored – and Logan didn't have a healing factor – that probably would have been it. Game Over.

The first rounds chewed up the left side of the vehicle, the front tire, and more of Logan than anyone was comfortable with, but Logan managed to keep control of his consciousness and the SUV. Clint and Logan were both cursing, and Tony was pretty sure he had a trail of Logan's blood splashed across his face, but he was more concerned with doing what he could to prevent anymore bullets entering the vehicle. Thankfully the window controls were automatic, not manual.

"We're bullet-proof once they're all up," he said aloud, mostly on Bruce's behalf, since he wasn't sure that Bruce knew.

The problem was, the front windows weren't going up, with Logan too busy throwing the SUV in reverse and trying to take them back around the curve, and Clint popping the lock on whatever he pulled out of his weapons case. It couldn't be his bow, not unless it was a cross bow, and not that Tony was taking the time to look since he felt it was his job to talk Bruce down from doing the damage the bullets couldn't by Hulking out. The only thing he could think of doing was pulling Bruce toward him, then on him as Tony slumped against the door and seat and mashed their lips together.

If he was wrong, well …

Thank everything, he wasn't wrong.

He kept their mouths fused by gripping Bruce's upper arm hard enough that his fingers immediately began to ache. One of Bruce's hands started fumbling between them, scrabbling at something or maybe just trying to keep them balanced as the car slew back and forth. Tony lifted the foot he hadn't braced against the floor to lock it around the back of Bruce's knee, their positions horizontal enough that they didn't roll off when he flinched from another round hit right next to the ear he had pressed against the door.

"Logan!" Clint called out in obvious warning.

"Yeah, I see him," came Logan's response, along with a 180 degree spin of the vehicle that did dump Tony and Bruce onto the floor.

"The fuck!" Tony started to say after his head bounced off the door. "Warn a guy!" But those in the front seat were still having their own conversation.

"Can you do anything about it?"

Clint barked out a laugh. "I'm good, but even I can't stop a missile with a bullet. You're – "

What! Missile?

Tony tried to lift his head. Bruce pulled him back down, his expression frantic and his eyes starting to glow.

Fuck!

"Bruce, we're okay," Tony tried. "We're –

Whatever they were, it wasn't under Tony's control in the next moment. Not Bruce's, nor Logan's.

Just as the vehicle jolted from Logan shifting between reverse and forward, several things made their presence known to Tony's brain simultaneously –

– Logan warning them this time, with a, "Hold on."

– The report from a .45 going off in an enclosed space without ear protection was deafening. And rather frightening, for all that Tony had handled guns all of his life;

– Logan didn't need to be a professional race car driver to accelerate like he was in the Grand Prix;

– Physics always had the last laugh.

Blacking out seemed to be a perfect response.

*****

Hangover were a bitch, whether they were caused by drinking or by going too many hours without sleep. Tony was a connoisseur, however, and had learned long ago how to function with a hangover. What always seemed to trip him up was memory, specifically who he'd been with before he crashed, and what they'd been doing. In this instance, he figured he hadn't been drinking; there was a pant clad leg under his head, an offer of implied comfort, and generally Pepper and Rhodey eschewed being nice to him when he'd been drinking.

Certain other things weren't adding up to martinis and Jell-O shots either. First off, he was pleasantly warm because of the leather blanket he laid under and despite the coolness of the floor underneath him. He felt sticky, but not in any of the fun places and, now that his body was waking up along with his brain, feeling achy too and also not in the fun places. Secondly, he was pretty sure he was hearing faint sounds of nature over a more internal ringing in his ears. Bird song and crickets, even branches rustling, but no waves, so not in a room with open windows in Malibu or Manhattan. Thirdly, things smelled wrong. Or right, if he was somewhere where they were going for the whole nature experience: the dirt and mild decay of growing things was spot on, but the iron smell – and taste – didn't belong. Neither, really, did the leather. At least he was pretty sure he hadn't ever ordered leather sheets.

Obviously he was going to have to bite the bullet and open his eyes to figure out what kind of trouble he'd gotten himself into this time.

Right. Bruce, not Pepper. Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, not the lovely Ms. Pepper Potts. Pepper had finally had too much and Bruce was his newest playmate and play date –

"Why are we outside? And why are you wearing someone else's shirt? But no shoes?" he added, when he flopped his head over to give a better look around him. The shirt was flannel and looked somewhat familiar, but Tony was ninety-nine percent positive that Bruce had never owned a flannel shirt in his life. At least not after he'd gotten to the point of where he bought his own clothing. It was also too big for him, not just in the shoulders, but seriously too big by more than a size, and while Bruce didn't care that much about his whether his clothes got rumpled or not, he did buy them in the right size.

"So, Tony's awake, but not all there?" Clint asked from somewhere beyond.

Okay, that was kinky.

He could feel when Bruce moved, guessed he was nodding since he didn't otherwise disrupt Tony's comfortable position.

"Yeah, complete with concussion and short term memory loss, it appears," Bruce directed off over his shoulder before returning his gaze – a very intent gaze – on Tony.

"Tony? You with me? You know the drill."

While he identified fingers and numbers and otherwise let Bruce fuss over him, Tony dwelt on the memory loss part. Concussion or not, he was still Tony Fucking Stark! He didn't just have one of the best brains in the business, his brain _was_ his business, and if anyone could think his way past memory loss … It wasn't like clues weren't surrounding him.

To start with, they were … resting within a bunch of trees, but not the trees from Central Park. Not unless someone had transmuted all the elms into Christmas trees. Which would be a damn sight more interesting than the idiots that decided to replicate the rabbit out of _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_ last month, times infinity – okay, times the number of rabbits Columbia University kept in its labs – and, of course enlarging them until they became ROUSes. Steve had not appreciated the _hasenpfeffer_ jokes at all.

All that fur would have made a nice blanket, but the leather – oh, it was a motorcycle jacket. Clint's jacket, going by it being black over the brown of Steve's. The flannel that Bruce wore was probably Clint's too, since Clint was only wearing a sinfully tight t-shirt when he showed up in Tony's field of view, despite the briskness of the temperature. Okay, Bruce wearing someone – Clint's – shirt and no shoes either meant there had been sex involved and or interrupted, highly unlikely, or Bruce had Hulked out, which would also account for the deep-set exhaustion lining Bruce's face as well as the bruising and cuts on Clint's.

So they had most likely assembled. Not the whole team, Tony was pretty sure since it was obviously just the three of them, no other teammates and no SHIELD. That would mean the threat hadn't been all that serious, and no worry about press or clean up. Or it meant it hadn't been a call out all, but an attack.

He twisted his head to look back up at Bruce. "Were we kissing? Making out like horny teenagers in the back of a car?" He certainly had vague sense memories of his tongue down Bruce's throat, but that didn't mean it had been recent, since that actually happened with wonderful frequency.

Bruce blushed, however, and Clint laughed, leaving Tony to conclude he had gotten that one right, though the car still threw him. As did Clint's presence. While Tony also had a vague recollection of suddenly discovering Clint in a new light, and that he and Bruce were considering whether to propose a threesome, Tony was pretty confident the sex hadn't happened yet. That, he was sure, he would never forget.

Maybe Clint had been playing chauffeur, what with Happy reassigned to Pepper out in Malibu for the foreseeable future. Natasha was there right now too, playing BFF and bodyguard –

Bodyguard!

Clint. Only not only Clint… Why was he remembering a squirrel? No, not a squirrel, but some other furry rodent thing, a true ROUS; bigger, nastier, and definitely _meaner_ –

Like a wolverine.

Logan.

"I got blown up!" Tony shouted, in triumph and in outrage. He quickly flung off the jacket and started pulling apart the buttons of his shirt and almost crying to find a t-shirt still in the way. Before he could tear it or further hurt himself, Bruce stopped him with gentle fingers taking hold of his own and pressing both their hands against Tony's chest. Where he could feel the matching warmth of arc reactor in counterpoint to Bruce's warmth, sleek and intact.

Tony let out a shaky sigh and let his head drop back onto Bruce's leg, only now realizing how much he ached from having tried to rise and strain so abruptly.

"We're alive, so it was actually a near miss," Clint corrected, from where he was suddenly crouched down by Tony's leg, another warm hand wrapped around Tony's ankle. "Of course, a shoulder-fired missile is like a horseshoe, a hand – "

"—grenade, and a thermonuclear weapon," Tony finished the old saying. "Close can be close enough."

Both Bruce and Clint nodded. "Logan had already gotten us off the road when it hit behind us," Clint continued. "The blast took away what limited control Logan had managed to keep on the wheel. The trees, down-slope and Bruce Hulking out did the rest."                                                                                                                              

"Your armor didn't survive the Other Guy's knee," Bruce said apologetically.

"But we did, which is miracle enough," Tony quickly pointed out. And it was a miracle, evading the missile, any more bullets, and what had to have been left of the SUV once the Hulk peeled it open like a piece of tin foil. "We _all_ did, right?" Tony had to ask, remembering Logan for real this time and putting it together with Logan's absence.

"Yeah," Bruce confirmed. "He's the one who told the Hulk to grab up you and Clint and get the hell out of there. Which the Hulk did with a vengeance. I imagine we're still somewhere within Germany, but more than that – "

"Pretty sure the Hulk stomped through a few vineyards in the Rhine Valley and we're now somewhere within the Black Forest," Clint contributed. "I was waiting until you regained consciousness before I did some scouting. No cell service here, and we're going to need to find Bruce some shoes before we walk out. We tore through several villages and towns during the mad rush, but I've never seen the Hulk really let loose with his running and leaping before, and couldn't reconcile maybe miles passing between jumps."

"We should have tested that before now," Tony berated himself. "Get a baseline for more than just the smashing." He tried to rise.

"Sure, Tony," Bruce agreed, though obviously only humoring him as he once more pressed against Tony to keep him still. "But let's wait until you can stand without falling over, not to mention pick a place that's a little less inhabited."

"There's no one around here now," Tony protested. He turned his head back to Clint, turning on the puppy dog eyes. "Right? Sailor Mars here would still be on guard if we were in danger."

Clint patted his leg and tilted his head toward Bruce. "Yes, we're safe for now, but I don't think Bruce is really up to changing into the Big Guy again so soon," he pointed out, giving Bruce's secret away.

"Are we waiting for Logan?" Tony could be still, if that meant keeping Bruce happy. While Bruce had actually referred to Hulk as the Hulk instead of the Other Guy just a few moments ago, he didn't think Bruce was as comfortable with him as the rest of them had become – especially Clint.

Clint was now shaking his head. "Logan could track us, but we've gone at least fifty miles if this really is the Black Forest, and he can't steal a car and drive and still keep a scent."

Logan? Oh, right, he'd asked about Logan. And Clint wasn't done answering.

"Most likely he headed back the few miles to that little village we'd last driven through before the ambush, called it in and is waiting for us to make contact with SHIELD ourselves. I imagine anyone would be able to track us from the air, which is another reason I want to get moving as quickly as we can, since we can't be sure SHIELD would find us first."

Instead of waiting for agreement, Clint now started to rise. Tony might not have all of his wits with him, but he could still see Clint wasn't moving nearly as fluidly as he should have been, not to mention the wince as he straightened up. If Clint was hurt, he shouldn't be going anywhere.

"Give Bruce your shoes – boots."

"Excuse me?" Clint had to turn full body to give Tony his glare, which only proved Tony's point as far as he was concerned.

"You're hurt. Ribs, I'm guessing, which means you shouldn't be out playing Strider any more than you can be Legolas right now. Bruce, you're just tired, right? Nothing broken or bleeding internally?"

Bruce wrenched his attention away from Clint back to Tony when Tony tugged on his shirt. Ooh, it was soft. Much softer than Tony had figured and no wonder hicks wore flannel if it felt like this on the inside too. He started to snake his hand between the buttons to check.

"Tony, stop." Bruce commanded, enforcing it with his grabby hands again.

"Clint, you, too. Is Tony right? Are you hurt?"

The glower was still there, but softened when turned on Bruce and that just wasn't fair. It wasn't Tony's fault he could have been a hawk-eye himself –

"I'm bruised and tender, but I assure you, Doc, nothing's broken or even cracked. "

"Dammit, Clint, let me see." Bruce didn't sound mollified.

"Really not necessary. I've had enough of both over my life to know."

Bruce shook his head. "You've got no reason to say no, unless you're lying," he scolded. "I know you're not body shy, so the only other thing I can conclude is that you don't trust me, even though Tony's the one who's been trying to get you out of your clothes and while, yes, I can't deny I've thought about it myself, I would never do anything inappropriate. So are you saying the fuss you and Natasha raised about using me for the minor stuff instead of bothering SHIELD medical was also a lie?"

Instead of keeping up with his scowl and delaying tactics, Clint's expression turned sheepish. "Fuck, but you play dirty, Doc! I'm going to have to remember that." With that he did step closer then carefully lift his shirt.

The lighting wasn't the greatest, what with the canopy of Christmas trees surrounding them, but Tony was pretty sure the bruising across Clint's torso looked black from the deepness of the injury, not just because of the afternoon's shadows. "Damn, Touma, you weren't wearing your seat belt, were you?"

If he had been, the banding would have been shoulder to hip cross-wise, instead of nearly horizontal just below his breast bone.

"Can't shoot through bullet-proof glass any more than the bad guys, which mean I had to hang a little out of the window to take them out. You should thank and feel sorry for me since that meant they didn't get a second missile off instead of laughing at me. And you're down to Anime archers now?"

"You're the one who recognized them, _Apollo_. And I'm not laughing, I'm commiserating. Fuck! Are those fingerprints?" Tony blurted out when he looked closer at the additional bruising Clint displayed as he started to turn before he finished pulling his shirt down. Big old fingerprints – Hulk-size fingerprints – symmetrically along the right side of Clint's lower ribs.

"Jesus, Clint! Why didn't you say anything?"

For a moment Tony thought he'd been bounced off of Bruce's lap, which would hurt since he'd already been bounced off a car door and a car floor and who knows how much more against the ground.

"Hey, it's not like you did it on purpose, Bruce. Or that there's anything you can do about it now. The Hulk is just better with holding things with his right hand than his left, which was Tony's spot."

Considering how sad Bruce looked right now, Tony didn't try to pull up his own shirt or even sneak a press of his fingers; he ached all over but not specifically or any more along his own ribs, so Clint was probably right.

And still talking, the chatterbox.

"It's nothing I can't handle, but I knew you'd start feeling guilty over it and we just haven't got the damn time to wallow!"

Ooh, a mad Chatty Cathy. Tony didn't remember ever hearing Clint yell before. It was kinda hot. Kinda scary too, and Tony wanted to feel the sexy back.

"Fine," Bruce stated, angry himself but not enough to keep from quieting Tony's fingers _one more damn time!_

"We're not done discussing this, however."

"Bet we are for now," Tony whispered, even as Clint responded with:

"Fuck, Bruce, let's just survive the rest of the day first. Then we can talk about your dissociative personality all you want."

Tony covered his mouth, because they weren't supposed to ever say that.

Fortunately, Clint shifted topics just as quickly as he was shifting moods.

"I'm heading out. If I don't find anything workable within forty minutes, I'll come back and we'll figure out something else. If someone comes looking while I'm gone, you guys take the fuck off. Don't worry about Hulking out again, since you're going to leave a trail regardless, and he can at least keep you both safe. SHIELD _will_ find you, I promise. Try to trust them and try not to fight back when they come, so no one gets hurt inadvertently. Fury is handling Hulk sightings personally until Phil's back on his feet, so they're not going to be coming after you with weapons or containment."

Because Fury had found out first hand that what he had on hand didn't work, and Tony wasn't going to give SHIELD any of the Hulk-buster weapons, not when he'd spent the last couple of months tasking JARVIS to find the ones he'd designed for Ross' team, then disabling them in a way the so-called Hulk Busters wouldn't find out about unless they went against orders and moved in on the Big Guy. JARVIS had talked him out of doing fatal or even permanent damage, but they were still going to be in for a big, painful surprise if they let Ross' madness infect them too.

"Should I be worried that you're giggling?"

Bruce's face was back looking at Tony's, still sad but no longer angry. Tony lifted his hand up to try and pat away the sadness. He couldn't understand how he missed, but Bruce was suddenly smiling, so obviously his hands were so magical he didn't need to touch to make someone feel good.

This time when Bruce took hold of it, he wasn't being grabby or mean. He simply leaned down and let his hand help Tony's find his face, making Tony feel good too.

"I wonder who tried to kill me."

***********

The next time Tony awoke, he knew immediately that the pain he was feeling wasn't from a hangover. It had been years, absolutely millions of years, since a hangover had made him feel this bad. It didn't help that he was strapped down to something only vaguely bed-like. Or that he wasn't more bothered by being strapped down at all, but it only took his brain a few seconds to place the noises that were coming along with the hard surface beneath him and the aches of his body. He was in a helicopter, and someone was lightly snoring right next to him. Both sounds were surprisingly comforting.

Without remembering why, Tony knew it was a bad idea to turn his head. He tried anyway, and found that his torso wasn't the only part of him restrained. Now would be a good time for panic, but he not only recognized that he was actually being held still by a neck brace, but that he'd also been given a few of the good drugs, since his body didn't seize when he shifted and he could feel his toes, although they were a little floaty. The reasons behind all of this came to him scant seconds later: the attack and crash, waking up lying on Bruce's lap and Clint stomping off.

"Someone please tell me we're rescued."

The snoring stopped; Bruce's as he now recognized, but it wasn't Bruce who moved into his field of view. Not Clint either, which gave Tony a moment's pause, then a flinch of another kind when he realized he was seeing Nick Fury in all his one-eyed, bad-ass glory.

"When I said you and Banner couldn't be trusted to head out country without a minder, I was hoping you would take it as a challenge and prove me wrong, Stark. Not that you would embrace it whole-heartedly."

"How do you know the attack was aimed for me?" Tony countered. He might not know where all of the bodies were buried in Fury's past, but he'd uncovered enough of them that he refused to be intimidated. The eye patch might not be overcompensation for something lacking, but the leather coat seriously was.

Or Fury was a _huge_ Matrix fan.

"Because Barton didn't kill both of the attackers and Logan decided information was better this one time over payback. It seems we have a new player in the game, something called AIM, for Advanced Idea Mechanics, which seems to be a think-tank for a group of eggheads and squints with an eye for world domination. An old girlfriend of yours got recruited, and whatever she's working on for them, someone above her decided if you showed up at the same conference she was attending, she might be taken in by your wiles again and spill the beans. Obviously, she's important enough to them that killing her wasn't the solution, killing you was."

"Should I be insulted they never tried to recruit me?"

Fury snorted. "Who says they didn't? More than just the US Government was disappointed when Stark Industries stopped making weapons."

"Or it could be that whoever is in charge didn't want to share the spotlight," Logan countered, coming up to Tony's other side. "You look like shit, Stark."

"At least I can heal and clean up pretty, Logan. You're stuck looking like that forever. I will admit, though, that you do look better than the last time I saw you. I think half of the blood covering my face then was yours." Juvenile, and normally Tony could dish much better, but he was a little impaired right now. Plus there had always been something about Logan that brought out his inner seven-year old brat.

"You're welcome," Logan growled in response, his smile all teeth to match the claws and menace just under his skin. "If I'd given in to your whining about driving, you'd be ground meat right now, and the rest of us blown up. I suppose your friend Banner could have survived, but we'd still be picking up pieces of you and Clint."

"Where are Bruce and Clint?" Tony would have turned to look, since he was still pretty sure he'd been lulled by Bruce's snoring and he absolutely did not want to think he'd taken comfort from maybe Fury's –

"Passed out on a couple of the jump seats so I didn't have to deal with their hovering," Fury said with his typical gruffness. "They might have been given a little help, but you'd all gone most of twenty-four hours without sleeping beyond whatever cat naps you'd taken in flight, so it wasn't hard to get them cooperating. And they're both okay, before you ask."

"Given relative meanings of okay," Tony muttered and, to his surprise, Fury and Logan both nodded.

"I can't say this attack is going to do anyone's mental health any good, but I'm not putting anyone on standby unless they request it and will simply request that you talk to the professional if you need to once you're all up and moving again, as long as you at least talk to each other over whatever shit has Banner and Barton spitting at each other like tomcats. Please tell me they aren't fighting over you, Stark."

Tony couldn't help the big grin that split his face – his lip, too, ow – but he also couldn't disrespect Bruce or Clint like that. "There may have been some Hulk delivered bruising, which Bruce is feeling guilty about and Clint is being dismissive of. Just the same old, same old."

Fury didn't look all that convinced, but he nodded and started to stand up, no doubt planning to go haunt the pilots into getting them wherever, faster, so he could be rid of the lot of them. His next words didn't exactly contradict Tony's thoughts on the matter, either.

"Fine. While you can't prove it by me, Rogers keeps saying you're all grown-ups and can look after yourselves, while Coulson insists none of you would go into the field impaired and potentially endanger one of the others. So I'm going to trust that they do know you better, or at least that none of you are damn fools with all the sense of an oyster."

"George Berkeley, Nick? That's quite a classical education you have there."

"I wasn't born working for SHIELD, Stark. And I have other interests even now. None of which involve you any longer."

Always had to have the last word, but Tony was fine with having the last laugh. No matter how encrypted the files or how deeply buried, there would be transcripts, grades and course schedules somewhere. Nick Fury, a philosophy major from NYU. If that didn't exist, it should and, through JARVIS, more importantly, it _could_.

 "So you brought one in alive?" Tony asked, since Logan didn't seem to be leaving in the wake of Fury, and Tony wasn't sure what else they had to talk about.

Logan nodded.

And said nothing more.

"And he admitted to working for an organization called AIM? For Maya Hansen?"

"He said he was hired by Hansen. They didn't work directly for AIM."

Well, that was something a little more, but still didn't really tell Tony anything.

"Has SHIELD also picked Maya up?" Someone had to let loose the AIM backing, after all, along with the fearing Tony Stark enough to go Jihad on his ass.

Logan shook his head this time.

And offered nothing else.

Fine. Two could play that game. Tony was still feeling tired and woozy anyway. He bet that by the next time he woke up, his superior brain would have figured it all out anyway.

*********

"Your boyfriend is a bigger dick than Summers," popped out of Tony's mouth as he opened his eyes and saw Clint sitting up in the bed across the room from his. At first Tony couldn't think why he'd felt compelled to say that upon awakening, but memories of Logan, the helicopter ride, and how stones had more blood than the Wolverine quickly came back to him, along with flashes of the attack proceeding the rescue, leaving for the conference, and Clint in the starring role of the horrible 80s film, _Gymkata_ , for some reason.

"Good morning to you, too. Has anyone ever told you that you have an inordinate interest in other people's relationships?" was Clint's entirely unhelpful response, although he did put down the tablet he'd been reading and gave Tony a good once over.

Tony just stared back.

"So that's the question you're going to go with?" Clint tried again. "Am I banging someone who'd object to me banging you and Bruce over, say, where are we or how did SHIELD find us?"

"You top?"

Even as he said it and realized he was only reinforcing Clint's point – hey, he had a concussion, he was allowed not to be smart all the time – he'd also been genuinely caught off guard by Clint's admission. Even if Clint was only into girls, the one he had the most intimate and meaningful relationship was Natasha Romanoff, who made Fury and Logan both look like Justin Hammer in the balls department.

"I don't play power games, and I don't kiss and tell," Clint responded with this time, looking serious enough that Tony thought he should let it go.

For now.

"If you have any constructive questions," Clint continued, "go ahead and ask, but otherwise, I'm going back to my reading. Bruce will be back in five or so, if that'll help you stay quiet."

"Where are we and how did SHIELD find us?" Tony instantly repeated back. "And you and Bruce are really okay?" If Bruce was walking around, and Clint wasn't really in the bed, just lying on top of it with his reader and sporting no visible bandages –

"The only invalid among us, Tony, is you. Concussion, a much nastier case of whiplash than mine, and you broke your wrist – your left one – which you never mentioned during your delightful stream of consciousness bout in the forest. I imagine that's what your brain is like all the time, only you normally are aware enough to fake it and apply filters along with the semblance of linear thoughts."

"Hey!" Tony started, but Clint hadn't actually been insulting him, or Tony couldn't take it as an insult since Clint had been totally right. Other than the occasional memory loss, concussions usually left Tony feeling freer if also somewhat frivolous. Filters were annoying, and one of the reasons he really liked working with Bruce, who didn't care if Tony couldn't keep to topic or acted like an ass.

"We flew into Ramstein, to answer your next question, as just another military flight. It turned out that from where Hulk went to ground, Höfen an der Enz, the pearl of Enz valley, was only a few miles south of our position. Cell reception was spotty, but I was able to borrow a landline and get a call to our office in Baden-Baden, who in turn called HQ and Hill, since it involved a Hulk sighting. You were passed out through all of it, until you woke on the helo. Which is why we're here in Landstuhl, waiting until you feel good enough to head back to New York. And, yes, before you worry, Hill called Pepper and Steve, who passed on the news that we were fine to JARVIS, Natasha and Phil."

"I'm not sure when I'd be up for taking a military transport back to the States," Tony admitted. "We can't get our Learjet?"

"Actually, we get to fly back in a SHIELD quinjet." Clint sounded very pleased. Tony knew of them, of course, since he'd had a hand in designing them with Prince T'Challa, aka the Black Panther, out of Wakanda, but any time the team had assembled and had gotten use of one of the VTOL vehicles, Tony had simply flown on ahead in an Iron Man suit.

"Shit, do I remember rightly that Bruce stepped on the Mark Five, version L?"

"Made it flatter than a pancake, except for the toe dimples," Clint said with a totally inappropriate smile. "Getting back to our flight, turns out one of the commanders who stopped by to check on a few of his men recently admitted here in the hospital is an old poker buddy of Fury and Logan's. The three of them headed back with the Sec Def on his Gulfstream."

Now that would be a poker game to sit in on. Tony had played for higher money stakes before, but the favors traded in that one, or the dirt –

"Logan or maybe it was Fury who said that Maya Hansen was the one behind the ambush. Well, the people she now works for, who were afraid I might seduce her back to the light side?"

While Tony would rather think about mythical poker games, he did still have a few questions, as Clint had posited. Getting an answer to them would help him determine any number of things, including how soon he did feel up to leaving. It was a shame to have gone through all of this and not get to attend the conference, but Bruce's sanity was now involved, if not his safety, along with Tony's own. He'd just have to make arrangements to fly Sampson back to one of the SI offices for a private meeting, once the conference was over. At least he and Sampson had never met, to Tony's recollection, so he shouldn't have any reason to say no.

"So we've been given to understand," Clint answered about Maya. "We're still looking into how she – or AIM – found out you were even coming to the conference, much less how they cottoned onto our driving route. I assure you, if it was one of SHIELD's own who gave away the game –"

"Hey, none of that," Tony interrupted. "At least not unless it's truly warranted. You, of anyone, should know better than to make unsubstantiated assumptions of guilt. We didn't tell anyone of the route Logan picked, including the guys and gals at Baumholder, because we didn't know which route Logan was going to pick. Chances are it's entirely as you speculated from the get go when it was just a vague someone who might be after me. AIM obviously does have the manpower or resources to cover even quasi-abandoned airstrips, which is scary enough to think about in its own right. And if they do have that, they most likely also have the resources to track a vehicle once it's been identified, either through CCTV or accessing a satellite. I could have found our car once I identified one of our faces, without having to use JARVIS, either."

"That's not exactly reassuring, Tony."

Clint indeed looked disturbed, but it didn't seem directly Tony's way.

"First we missed Hydra resurrecting itself, and now something like AIM?"

Though it was directed as a question, Clint seemed to be talking mostly to himself. Tony was curious enough about his thoughts on their brave, bold and sometimes bad new world that he didn't interject or interrupt. As Hawkeye, Clint had already proven he had tactical skills on par with his aim, and strategy usually went hand in hand with tactics, but overall, Clint didn't think much like the SHIELD planners or the guys at the War College, from everything Tony had previously observed. Another perspective could only be a good thing.

"Either SHIELD is slipping, or the bad guys are stepping up their game to eleven, and neither thought is prone to encourage a sound night's sleep. Next thing you know, we'll be having super-powered, super-villains popping up out of the woodwork, along with the mad scientists, evil geniuses and aliens. Trouble is, humans don't need any enhancements to kill one another."

"Kinda preaching to the choir here," Tony finally said after Clint fell into a brooding silence, purposely tapping against his arc reactor. "No one can hurt you more than the people you trust."

Yeah, Whiplash as well as the Ten Rings had been scary motherfuckers – and Loki and the Chitauri, of course – but it was Obadiah's' betrayal which still haunted Tony's dreams. And Clint being forced to betray his friends and colleagues was no doubt what kept him awake at night. If Clint had also been a mutant, or had even better tech than the shit Loki had gathered or Clint stole for himself –

"Fury won't ask it of you, but if you can come up with the type of projects Dr. Hansen worked on when you knew her, we might be able to come up in turn, with a list of people or institutions keeping track of her. Who might have recruited her. And when."

Back to subject, with not even an awkward transition or segue, but Tony didn't mind, was even a little grateful, not that this subject matter was much easier to dwell upon.

"So far we've only got basic information about Hansen. She hasn't made it to the conference and we've got nothing on where she might have gone to ground. The other things we do have are a couple of names from the survivor: his dead partner and the cut-out. Once we pick up the cut out, I'm sure we'll get more, but they will likely only be low-level lackeys or maybe one of the money guys, since that's how we got on to AIM in the first place; someone filled out fucking paperwork for their assassin consultants. We don't really have any idea of AIM's scope or its reach. Whether it's German-based, American or International. And until we do get something else, things are probably going to stay that way until they surface again."

"I'll do you one better, Fred Bear."

Clint's lips twitched, and Tony let loose his own smile.

"I'll also give you a list of who would be good recruits for AIM. Both in terms of their intellect or discoveries, along with who is most likely to have said yes when they came asking, like Justin Hammer. You should ask Bruce to put together his list like that."

"His own list like what?" Bruce asked as he came into the room at the tail end of Tony's suggestion. Two bags hung off of his wrists, because his hands were full holding a tray filled with a couple of plastic cups, bottles of water, and something that smelled damn good.

"It's just grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup," Bruce told them when Tony made grabby hands. "I wasn't sure about any nausea when you woke up, and it's also two am, so the main mess is closed. This is what was available in the O Club and even then, it's only thanks to Fury's clout that I could go in and ask for it. I didn't think any of us were up for hospital food."

"There are only two settings," Tony protested when the dishes were uncovered.

Bruce ducked his head. "I didn't think you'd be awake just yet," he admitted. "We can share."

Given he wasn't feeling nauseous until Bruce mentioned it, half was probably a good idea. It wasn't so bad even now that Tony thought he'd hurl from eating, but he didn't want to push things. Especially when he figured the cause was from his meds more than the concussion.

"I can share with Tony," Clint offered as he slowly moved from the bed to come over and help Bruce set the plates, bowls and cups on a rolling table Bruce stoppered with one of his feet, now clad in a pair of boat shoes Tony noted.

"I wasn't the one who defied the laws of physics, twice, in the last six hours, by drastically changing my body mass," Clint continued. "I can also go out and get something more if we need it, since, technically I'm still on long-term TDA as far as the US Military is concerned and I've got the ID to prove it. I can't go into officer territory, since I work for a living, but there will be a base exchange still open, or one of the DEFACs for the soldiers on midnight duty."

"You were an Army Ranger too?" Tony asked, not quite believing it, but not sure why Clint would lie to them about something like that. He had no doubt Clint had Military ID with his name one it, or some name he would answer to, but copping to being an actual grunt…

"I'll admit, I can't see an army drill sergeant in Clint Barton's past, either," Bruce spoke up.

Tony nodded in agreement, his head only half hating him for doing so, the pain offset by his wanting to encourage the story.

"Not Army, so it was a drill instructor. I was Force Recon. A marine," Clint explained with an easy smile that, again, told Tony he wasn't lying.

"A marine sniper, to be precise, and I guess you'd both be surprised at the kinds of discipline that are handed out in a circus. Marine Boot was a cakewalk in comparison."

Well, hoorah, Hawkeye, Tony said, but only to himself. Clint's smile wasn't so easy anymore, although his tone remained open and lively. It was his eyes though, that were telling a completely different story, and not one he was remembering from boot camp, Tony would bet his fortune on that.

"How many years did you serve?" Bruce asked while he apportioned out the food, splitting the two meals into threes, because Bruce was exactly like that.

"Thirteen on active duty. I spent a couple of years in between the Marines and SHIELD doing stupid shit on my own, but Fury or, more likely, Coulson, managed to smooth over the leave I took without the Corps' permission and, like I said, as far as the Joint Chiefs of Staff know, I'm on Temporary Attached Duty to SHIELD. For the last nine, no, it's been ten years now. Passed that anniversary while working for Loki."

Shit, mine fields all around, and Bruce certainly looked stricken, but Clint waved the both of them off, not that Tony had figured out what to say.

"Best damn anniversary gift I've ever gotten was when Fury told me Phil was alive, guys. It's okay. You can talk about it, or not, but I'm not going to let my soup get cold."

To parcel it into threes, Bruce had co-opted one of the cups to substitute as a bowl, and that's what Clint reached for. Bruce opted for discretion, too, grabbing up the nearest bowl and a spoon which he quickly filled, but Tony was made of sterner stuff.

"I guess you going AWOL from the Marines is why you never told Steve you were also a GI Joe."

Clint grinned behind his glass and nodded. "He would be pretty disappointed, I'm thinking. And while I could lie, since my record would back it up, I haven't yet figured out how to lie to Captain America. I don't even think Tasha can. He's just so … sincere."

"So that's why she's so quiet and doesn't answer too many questions. She's lying by fucking omission."

Another nod, but Clint's grin twisted and he set the cup down, turning it full force on Tony. "You're going to lie now and say that's not why you retreat to your lab half the time when Steve comes into a room. That you're not avoiding lying to him yourself by extracting yourself before a question can get asked. Or why you're always pushing your JARVIS help button on whatever device you're fiddling with to have him interrupt with something that only you can deal with?"

"You are entirely too observant."

"They don't call me Hawkeye because I'm from Iowa or because I liked _The Last of the Mohicans_. The music from the movie was good, though. And Daniel Day-Lewis was disturbingly hot in _Gangs of New York_."

Tony filed the Iowa note away, and took up a spoonful of his own soup. Not quite like Jarvis the Living or JARVIS the AI made for him, but it would do.

"So you find Daniel Day-Lewis hot?" Tony asked between his second and third spoonful. "So you are gay? Or bi?"

"Fuck, Tony, fine. You manage to convince Phil and Natasha that it's just because you can't help yourself with curiosity, and I'll let you fuck me while I blow Bruce. Or visa versa, if that's something okay with you, Bruce. Once. Only. And then you'll shut the fuck up about my orientation, my sex life, and my relationships to people that are not you."

"Deal!" Tony said before his brain caught up with his mouth and he realized he'd just agreed to barter for Clint's virtue with the only people who scared him outside of Pepper.

Fuck.

– finis –

 


End file.
